#person in the last photo for scale
Text
sapiosexual
🌙 staring. Seungcheol x afab!Reader
🔮 preview. “You’re a beautiful, bright, young woman, and you’re agreeing to be a companion to some middle aged psych nut who hardly has enough time for you-” you both laugh a little at the way he refers to himself, “compensation is a must.”
cw/ tw. daddy kink/issues, size/shoulder/back kink, contractual relationship, unspecified age difference, unprotected sex, choking, semi bondage, multiple sex scenes, fingering, squirting, oral (m/f receiving), baby oil massage, praise, dirty talk, hair pulling, overstim, dacryphilia, slight orgasm denial, hand kink, etc... I pet names. his: daddy. hers: gorgeous, angel, darling, my love, pretty girl, etc...
👹 rating. 18+ explicit I wc. 18.6k
🍭 aus. psychologist au, non idol au, sugar daddy au, aged up/soft dom cheol, etc...
☀️ mlist + an. dont fuck your psychologist, fuck a psychologist... and try to get a cheque while you do it 👀 (sapiosexual: the attraction to intelligence and broad af shoulders)
1: Wednesday
“I’m here to meet someone- under the name Choi?”
The hostess nods politely. “Mister Choi has been expecting you, right this way.”
Your heart lurches in your chest at her words. While it makes sense that the man you’re meeting for your date had let the host know he’d have a plus one joining him, there’s something in the woman’s diction that suggests a certain kind of familiarity.
The restaurant you’re in is an expensive one, and the previous man you’d met through the online sugar dating website had made something of a show of being a part owner of a place such as this, treating the staff in a way that demanded obedience-
You really hope, for everyone’s sake, that the person you’re meeting tonight is much kinder than the last.
The hostess takes you through the main dining section of the establishment and to a more secluded area, where she motions with a hand to the one occupied table by the windows that overlook the city.
“Your server will come by for your drink order shortly,” she tells you, giving you a quick nod and something of a knowing smile before she returns to her post, allowing you to make the final distance to the table yourself.
The man sitting with his back to you hasn’t turned around, and you take a moment to collect yourself, swallowing thickly. Your eyes scan over his broad shoulders, taking in the pretty tweed suit, the colour of charcoal, and neatly styled black hair.
You take a deep breath and begin forward.
“Sorry I’m late,” you apologize as you reach the man you’ve been in contact with just under a week- “you know how traffic can be-”
Your words feel jumbled in your mouth as Mr. Choi stands to greet you- because, although you’d been expecting a handsome man, you hadn’t been expecting him to be godlike-
The photos he’d had on the sugar dating site had been ten out of tens, but the man in front of you is a scale breaker.
He’s even broader up close, and tall too- looking down at you with an amused expression, eyes practically twinkling-
“It’s alright,” he tells you smoothly, voice sexier than you could have ever imagined, “I’m glad you’re here now.”
“Me too,” you breathe, blinking up at him, etching his angelic features into your brain-
“You look beautiful,” Mr. Choi says, taking in the dress you’d spent three hours picking out-
His eyes don’t linger anywhere in particular, they’re quick to move back up to your face, and part of you almost wishes he’d stared at your chest just a little longer-
“Thank you,” you say, remembering you’ve yet to respond to his compliment.
“Would you like to sit?” he asks next, and you realize you’ve been staring too long, quickly tearing your gaze from him to give a curt nod.
The two of you take your seats, and you adjust in your chair, letting out a shaky laugh. “I’m also sorry if I’m a little awkward- I feel like my social skills took a hit during the pandemic.”
The man in front of you nods. “That’s understandable. The aftereffects of global isolation during covid is something that’s going to be studied by psychologists in depth in the coming years. You’re not alone in your feelings, believe me.”
You blink, thinking through his words. “Thank you-” you stutter, “for the reassurance, I mean.”
“Of course,” he nods again. “I think you’ll find I can be very reassuring, if need be.”
Your skin tingles, and you can’t believe that you’d nearly let your best friend talk you out of this date.
‘Psychologists can be dangerous!’ Seungkwan had insisted, ‘One moment you think he’s your boyfriend, the next he’s hypnotized you to cover up a murder-’
You’d told him to stop rewatching Hannibal.
But you have to admit… Mr. Choi, or Seungcheol, as he’d called himself when he’d first messaged you, he definitely looks like Hannibal.
Broad, handsome, tweed suit and all-
“I can see you’re thinking hard about something,” the man sitting across from you notes.
“Sorry, I was just-” you bite at your lip, “was just thinking that you’re probably really good at your job.”
His brows raise at this, and then he’s smiling, “Oh?”
“Yeah, you erm- you have a really calming voice and presence, and I mean- obviously you know what you’re talking about-”
“Are you in the market for a psychologist?”
“No-” you answer quickly, “I mean, I don’t think so- that’s not why I matched with you at least.”
The amused smile remains on his face, and it’s making it hard for you to look at him-
He keeps his gaze so fixed on you, and he exudes confidence on top of the calm-
Confidence that’s making your heart thump louder and louder in your chest-
“Hello, Mr. Choi,” the arrival of your waiter breaks the building tension you’re feeling. The question “How has your evening been so far?” confirms that Seungcheol knows the staff, and the pleasant way in which he responds tells you that you’re on a date with a good man.
After a brief back and forth, Mr. Choi orders himself an Old Fashioned, and you ask for a gin and tonic.
Then, you’re once more alone with the man whose gaze is enough to have your pussy clenching with interest-
“I saw you were new to the site,” Seungcheol notes, and you can’t believe he’d bothered to look for that information on your profile, let alone remember it. “How’s your experience been so far?”
You take a moment to collect your thoughts before responding. “If I’m being honest, I talked to one person for a while, and when we met, he turned out to be- just- not a good person. So when you favourited me, and I thought you looked nice, I told myself it would be better to meet up in person without too much back and forth first.”
“That sounds logical,” he agrees. “I’m sorry your first experience wasn’t what you thought it would be, but there is a silver lining, you’re here now.”
“I’m here now,” you echo with a smile, and the waiter returns with your beverages.
Seungcheol had invited you for drinks and dessert. Seungkwan had insisted that meant drinks and sex, but your view of things is proved to be correct when Mr. Choi orders the ‘dessert tasting menu’ and the waiter scurries off again.
“Should we make a toast?” you ask, allowing your eyes to trail over Seungcheol’s handsome face- his strong brow and pretty lips-
“We should,” he confirms, grabbing his glass and lifting it, “what would you like to toast to?”
“Being here now.”
“To being here now.” Seungcheol allows the lip of his glass to clink gently against your own before bringing it to his mouth, and you each drink to the moment.
“So,” you say when you set your cup down, “why drinks and dessert instead of dinner?”
“Dinners can be long, and full of expectations,” he tells you. “Drinks and dessert allows you to leave earlier, if you’d like to.”
“You seem like the kind of man who has everything figured out,” you muse.
The side of his mouth quirks into a charming half smile, and he leans forward slightly in his chair, assessing you with dark eyes- “Does that excite you?”
“Yes-” the word slips out before you can stop it.
The man in front of you leans back, satisfied.
“What, exactly, are you looking for right now?” he prompts. “Your bio was… somewhat vague.”
“I guess-” you take a sip of your drink. “I guess it depends on who it is.”
“How about you start by telling me your thought process behind creating an account,” he suggests.
You’re momentarily distracted by the way his thumb rubs up and down the side of his cup- dragging through droplets of condensation gathered on the glass-
“My best friend loves Marilyn Monroe,” you find yourself saying.
This is clearly not the answer Seungcheol had expected, as he quirks that inquisitive brow of his at your words, and you’re quick to continue.
“His favourite movie of hers is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes- and I’m not kidding, he’s been bleaching his hair since the tenth grade because of it- and there’s this quote- something like- ‘it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.’ And I just sort of thought- I’m tired of putting a lot into relationships with people who give nearly nothing in return. At least with something like this- I’d be guaranteed something- you know?”
“It sounds like you’ve spent a lot of your life trying to make other people happy,” he notes smoothly. “I can understand why you’d want to be on the receiving end. Everyone deserves reciprocation.”
He pauses, swirling his glass, but you can tell there’s something else on his mind, and you wait on the edge of your seat for more.
“From what you’ve said,” his thumb runs up the glass again, “it sounds to me like you’re looking for a contractual type of situation, moreso than a verbal agreement. Something with that added stability.”
“That’s correct,” you nod.
The last man hadn’t ever brought up contracts or boundaries or any of the things that are mentioned when you’d looked up what sugar babying entails.
You’re enthralled by the professional way Mr. Choi is handling himself, and you’re enjoying his crystal clear communication.
“What-” you lick your lips, “what are you looking for?”
“As you know, I’m a psychologist,” he states. “The job comes with a lot of responsibility. I take care of a number of people with quite severe conditions, and unfortunately, regardless of my intentions, this means I’ve had less time and energy to give to people in my own life.”
He pauses to take a breath and a sip of his whisky before continuing.
“I had a fiance for a time, but it became clear to me that she wanted a child. At the time, I wasn't ready to give up my work to be present in the way a developing mind would need. I’ve been looking for a sugar baby who would understand my lifestyle. Someone to meet with once or twice a week, who would provide happy company and the emotional closeness all human beings desperately need, without some of the… expectations that traditional relationships have. Does this sound like something that could interest you?”
You find yourself quickly nodding.
“Good,” he smiles warmly at you. “I’d love to explore the exact details of a contract over drinks, and we can choose a day to do that, but for now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to switch the topic and focus on you a little more.”
“On me?” you blink-
Mr. Choi’s grin widens, and the warmth meets his eyes. “Yes, you. I think it’s safe to say we’re both physically attracted to each other, but I want to know more about who you are, inside that pretty body of yours.”
You can feel your skin heating from his compliment, and you avert your gaze, grabbing at your drink to take a sip and cool yourself. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with the things that make you happiest.”
2: Thursday
“Look who finally decided to answer,” your best friend sighs loudly when you put him on speaker, and you can imagine his classic Seungkwan eye roll.
“I was sleeping,” you tell him, which only succeeds in earning you a scoff.
“And I have been waiting for details about your date since last night!”
“I sent you a text saying it was good!”
“And then you put your phone on silent you whore!” your best friend screams, making you laugh at his antics- then his voice dips. “Did you fuck him?”
“No, of course not-”
“You sound like you’re lying.”
“I’m not, I promise-” you roll onto your back and look up at your ceiling, letting out a breath. “Drinks and dessert literally meant drinks and dessert.”
“Did he at least- I don’t know, feed you some of the dessert?”
“No.”
“Oh.” The line is quiet for a moment. “Well that’s anti-climactic.”
You laugh. “First you wanted me going on dates with sugar daddies, then you were weird about Seungcheol, now you’re wishing I had fucked him-”
“Well- did you enjoy yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Was he hot?”
You groan. “So fucking hot you don’t even know-”
“Then I do wish you’d fucked him- you’re my best friend, and you deserve to get laid,” Seungkwan says plainly. “Also- I was only weird about this Seungcheol guy because he’s a therapist-”
“Psychologist.”
“Same thing- the point is, he’s a guy with power and a brain- that can be a deadly combination.”
“I thought I told you to stop watching Hannibal,” you smile, enjoying the way Seungkwan turns everything into life or death.
He scoffs at your words, disregarding them. “So tell me about your date.”
“Like I said, it was good. I got there, we ordered drinks, he’s obviously like- super smart. We talked a little bit about why we’re on the site-”
“Why is he on the site? If he’s hot, rich, and smart?” Seungkwan asks. “Shouldn’t he be with- I don’t know… someone his own age? How old was he again?”
“Mid to late thirties- and there’s a reason for it actually. He mentioned a fiance who wanted kids- I think women ‘his age’ are all looking for a family, but he’s very… invested in his work,” you explain.
“Oh. Huh.” You listen to the cogs in Seungkwan’s brain turning. “So- I guess he just wants a sugar baby to work around his busy schedule?”
“He’s looking for a companion-” you say, “but, you know, someone who can handle the fact that his work comes first.”
“Right.” A beat, then; “So did you guys talk money?”
“Seungkwan!”
“What!?” he yells back. “Quit beating around the bush!”
“He didn’t just- whip a wad of cash out and give it to me,” you laugh. “He paid for everything of course, and we agreed to discuss a contract over drinks-”
“When?”
“Actually-” you look down at your phone, which has just buzzed, scanning the new text. “Coincidently, he’s texting me now.”
“Oooh! What’s he saying?!”
“He said, ‘I really enjoyed your company last night. Would you like to join me for drinks tomorrow at eight?’”
“Wow, this dude works fast- are you sure you didn’t suck him off or anything?”
“Seungkwan!”
“I just mean- two dates in three days- this is fast.”
“Yeah well,” you shrug while texting out a confirmation response for Seungcheol, “if you’d seen Mr. Choi in person, you’d be hoping things go fast too.”
“Is he really that sexy? This isn’t just- your old man kink?”
“I dont have an old man kink-”
“Sure you don’t.”
You groan. “Seungkwan, just trust me. This man-” you swallow thickly, “he could choke me out- and I’d say thank you daddy.”
“Right, but let’s hope he doesn’t though.”
3: Friday
Part of you isn’t surprised that Seungcheol has a study in his home, but another part of you wonders if this man is really someone you should be entertaining, with his shelves of psychology texts and autobiographies written by renowned people in his field- and the framed degrees and papers of certification-
Seungcheol is the real deal; it’s clear as day and reflected in his home.
He gives you a tour of the main floor, moving from the study to the dining room, and despite your ardent attempt at listening- it’s hard to focus.
If he’d been godlike in the charcoal tweed suit when you’d first met him- well, you don’t even know how to describe how well he fits into a plain white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose strong, bulky forearms- and then there’s the way the material stretches over his deliciously broad shoulders every time he turns his back to you-
“Now that I’ve given you a small tour, why don’t you take a seat,” he says as you enter his kitchen. “And I’ll grab us drinks. What are you feeling? Wine, water, beer, champagne-”
“Whatever you think is best,” you tell him, a little overwhelmed by the effect his home is having on you-
The effect he is having on you.
“I think I’d like to give you champagne,” he says, turning his back to you to open his fridge.
You find yourself nearly drooling at the brief moments you’re able to gawk at his shoulders again- and when he faces you, your eyes immediately zero in on his hands as they begin to fiddle with the bottle-
“Has anyone ever talked you through opening a bottle of champagne before?” he asks.
Your eyes meet briefly and you feel your skin heat when you admit, “not really- is there a specific way to do it?”
“I’m not sure if there’s one specific way,” Seungcheol chuckles a little, looking down at his task. “At ceremonies, sometimes they’ll use a sword and knock the top of the neck clean off- but for our purposes, and to avoid breaking anything with the cork if it shoots off, I prefer utilizing the cork cage,” he runs his fingers across the metal contraption on top of the bottle. “The trick is to unwind it most of the way, but keep it on so when you manuever the cork up-” his thumb runs along the seem, working at it- “it pops,” there’s a loud sound, “but it gets caught by the cork cage, and then, both are easily removed.”
He’d done the motion so professionally- a man who’s opened many a champagne bottle in his time.
Seungcheol seems to be an expert of everything - a true wealth of knowledge - and it’s one of the sexiest things you’ve ever experienced.
You watch him pour two glasses of the bubbly liquid, and then he gingerly slides one across the marble island countertop, “I think you’ll enjoy this.”
He watches you with an amused expression while you raise the champagne to your lips, and when your eyes widen at the taste, he grins.
“It’s really good,” you say, toying with the stem of your glass.
Now it’s your turn to watch him take a sip- and you’re blown away by how sexy he can be while simply drinking- his adam’s apple bobbing-
You wanna lick his neck.
You wanna lick his neck so bad-
“Should we get down to business?” he asks.
You wanna get down on something- and it’s not business.
“Er- yes, we should,” you agree, shifting the way you’re seated on the bar stool at his counter-
Your panties are sticking to your core and it’s a little uncomfortable-
You have no idea how this night is going to pan out, no idea if you’ll actually end up in his bed- so you’ve worn a beautiful, silky, matching set- its one drawback is the way the material sticks to you when you’re even slightly aroused- and you’ve been aroused since the moment Seungcheol opened the door to his home and invited you in.
“Since this is a contract we’re making together, I held myself back from writing one up,” he explains. “I was thinking we could discuss it verbally, and I’ll write up a copy of what we’ve talked about after you go home tonight-”
You feel your expression fall a little and Seungcheol pauses, expert eyes assessing you.
“Is something wrong?” he asks.
“No,” you assure him, swallowing thickly and averting your gaze, “that sounds like a good idea.”
There are a few more moments of silence, and then Seungcheol rests both hands on the countertop, leaning forward, voice dipping when he says, “Darling, as much as I’d love for you to stay over tonight, I promised myself I wouldn’t fuck you until the third date.”
Your skin feels electrified, and you gawk at the gorgeous man, who looks down at you with an amused grin.
You nearly shock yourself when the words “why not?” tumble past your lips, and his affectionate smile widens at your question.
“We’ve hardly discussed expectations,” he answers smoothly. “It would be… unwise for me to skip those important steps, to give you time to consider your options.”
“My options?”
“I am older than you,” he points out, “and there’s still a chance you might decide you want someone who can give you more of his time. I want you to be sure about all of this.”
“I am sure,” you insist.
“You think you are,” he muses, bringing his champagne to his lips, “but until you see a finalized document, you shouldn’t be agreeing to anything.”
“You won’t hurt me-” you tell him, “I trust you.”
“Although we only just met,” he points out. “If you trust me at all, trust in this process, okay, Sweetheart?”
You swallow any words of insistence that threaten to bubble up out of you, nodding and taking a sip of your own drink.
“So,” he lets out a sigh, “we discussed a few of my expectations when we first met, do you remember what they were?”
“You were looking for a companion of sorts, who could manage you being at work frequently,” you respond, feeling pleased when he nods and smiles at you. “Someone to meet up with once or twice a week.”
“Very good, Angel,” he praises you. “While it’s implied, I’d like to solidify what you might call a key condition.”
You’re practically on the edge of your seat, waiting for him to continue, your interest piqued.
“Any contract you’d sign would come with a loyalty clause.” He pauses for a moment, eyes searching your own. “Do you understand what that entails?”
“I think so,” you nod. “It would be an agreement that while I’m seeing you, I wouldn’t be entertaining anyone else. We’d be exclusive.”
“That’s my smart girl,” he smiles. “Even though I don’t have much time for you, I’d provide for you to live comfortably when I’m not around, in the hopes that, when we are together, we’re both committed to making the best of it.”
You love the way that sounds.
“Which brings me to my next point,” he continues, “monthly allowances. I’ll cover your food, rent, utilities- anything you need, and provide extra spending money for clothing, jewelry, etcetera.”
“Wow, that’s-” you feel your eyes widening, “that’s very generous of you.”
“It’s really not,” he insists. “You’re a beautiful, bright, young woman, and you’re agreeing to be a companion to some middle aged psych nut who hardly has enough time for you-” you both laugh a little at the way he refers to himself, “compensation is a must.”
You have to stop yourself from happily chirping an ‘if you say so daddy’ at the man that is so close to becoming everything you’ve ever wanted for yourself-
“On top of our one-on-one interactions,” Seungcheol says, “I’d also like for you to accompany me to professional events, but I’d need you to be discreet. On top of a loyalty clause, I might have you sign a nondisclosure act- how does that sound to you?”
You consider it for a moment. “I’m not the type to go tell people about my personal life- and other than my best friend, no one even knows I was on the sugar site-”
“Your friend who loves Marilyn Monroe and bleaches his hair?” Seungcheol asks with an amused expression.
“You remembered-” you laugh, heart warming to know how many details he’s held onto in regard to your first meeting.
“The NDA can exclude your close friend, we all need a confidant.”
“Thank you,” you swallow, “I think- if it allows me to talk to Seungkwan, signing a NDA would be okay.”
“Perfect,” Seungcheol nods, drinking the last of his champagne. “We’ve covered a few of the most important parts of an agreement, so I think maybe now is a good time to grab another important document that I need you to look over.”
“Oh?”
“Stay here for a moment, I’ll be right back,” Seungcheol assures you, flashing you a quick wink before exiting the kitchen.
It’s almost torturous to be alone anywhere in Seungcheol’s home without him, and part of you is inclined to follow him around like a lost, needy puppy-
You finish your drink while you wait, taking breaths to calm yourself, afterall, he’d said he wouldn’t be fucking you tonight- therefore, there’s not much for you to worry about.
Seungcheol returns shortly, holding a dark leather file folder, which he offers to you.
“What’s this?” you ask, not wanting to open it without being prompted to- but your curiosity is as high as ever.
“Separate from our sugar agreement, this is a bdsm contract. It has a list of kinks and other things, as well as a section for you to fill out, detailing what you’re comfortable - and more importantly - what you’re uncomfortable with. I’d like you to take it home, look it over, and if you have any questions, let me know.”
“Right-” you stand up, holding the file folder to your chest-
Any words that you were thinking of saying disappear when you look up at Seungcheol, once more marveling at your size difference and how beautiful he is-
“You’re easily distractable,” he grins, pinching at your chin gently, “aren’t you, Angel?”
“Yes sir,” you mumble-
Easily dazed too.
“My driver will take you home now,” the (much too sexy) psychologist tells you. “His name is Seokmin, you’ll probably have to remind him to give you his number. He’ll be available to you from now on if you need to go anywhere.”
“You have a driver?” you blink- shocked at how he’s able to afford all of this-
You realize he must come from old money- and you’re appalled you hadn’t noticed it before.
He doesn’t carry himself in the way a man who’d made a name for himself would- he has an air of confidence- a confidence that runs deep and is backed up by family money.
“Yes, darling,” Seungcheol grins, “we have a driver.”
4: Saturday
You’ve always loved having movie night with your best friend, but tonight, he’s not interested in movies. Seungkwan is easily distractable - a little like you, you suppose - and when you’d arrived over an hour ago, he’d immediately insisted on knowing every detail about your experience with the man he now refers to as ‘Psych daddy.’
On top of being distractable, Seunkwan is easy to please, and you manage to avoid mentioning the BDSM contract for a good long while, instead focusing on Seungcheol’s hot driver, who Seungkwan finds on instagram within five minutes.
“No way- first Psych Daddy is a ten out of ten, and now his driver is hot too?” Seungkwan bellows while mad scrolling through Seokmin’s profile. “Are you sure we’re not in some weird porn dream? You’re not gonna get tag teamed are you?”
“Seungkwan!” you scream, gently smacking him across the shoulder in shock.
“We were both thinking it!” he insists, shoving you back.
“I’ll have you know that we were not both thinking it,” you state with just as much certainty.
“But you mentioned how nice the guy was when he dropped you off last night and we called for like five minutes before you hung up on me to go to bed!”
“Yeah, in the context that Seungcheol is really nice to everyone that works for him, despite being-”
“One of the youngest, sexiest psych daddies in the city, yeah, yeah-” Seungkwan waves his hand, “Stop rubbing it in.”
“Have you been researching my boyfriend again?” you ask, thoroughly amused.
“Boyfriend?” Seunkwan eyes you up and down, sneering. “Is that what we call dom daddies now?”
“If he makes you sign a loyalty clause and a NDA, I think I can call him whatever I want, can’t I?” you point out. “And you avoided my question- you’ve definitely been googling Cheol again.”
“Been googling myself to pictures of pysch daddy-” Seungkwan says suggestively before asking, “He made you sign an NDA?”
“Not yet,” you sigh, “and don’t worry, we’ve discussed it and it will exclude you- I can tell you anything I want to.”
“Shit, did you tell him my name? Do you think he’ll accept me as a patient if he knows I’m your best friend?”
“Since when do you need a psychologist?” you laugh.
“Uh,” Seungkwan’s brows raise, “Bestie, have you seen my life? I definitely need someone to confide in who knows what the fuck he’s talking about.”
“Ouch,” you touch your heart, pretending to be wounded. “Since when did you not like crack gremlin advice?”
“Since you put down your crack gremlin hat and became a sugar baby to a hot psychologist,” Seungkwan sighs, taking one last look at Seokmin’s grinning face before he puts his phone down and focuses entirely on you. “But go back a few steps and talk to me about this loyalty clause- psych daddy sends you home with a ton of papers to sign, huh?”
“More than you could imagine.”
Your best friend looks you up and down with suspicion, brow raising in a silent prompt for more info.
When you remain quiet, Seungkwan sighs. “Fine, don’t tell me,” but after a beat, he asks, “Was it a sex list or something?”
You’re always stunned by how intuitive your best friend can be.
Upon reading your reaction, Seungkwan’s eyes widen and he grabs at your arm, nearly jumping with excitement. “No way!” he yells in your ear. “He did send you home with a sex list! Show me, show me, show me!”
You look to your bag and before you can even reach for it, Seungkwan is darting past you and retrieving the papers. “Holy shit-” he breathes, scanning the document with eyes full of something like perverted excitement. “A checklist for kinks?”
“Yup.”
“Choking, yes. Spanking, fuck yeah- bondage-” he grins at you, “looks like someone’s a little slut for psych daddy.”
“Oh my god,” you groan, reaching for the papers, but he launches himself off the couch to evade you. “If you’re gonna be like this, I don’t want to show you.”
“Fine, I’ll be nice,” Seungkwan says, but he’s still reading the list, and his voice is lacking any real sincerity. “Okay so most of these are straightforward-”
“You watch way too much porn,” you sigh.
He practically growls at you. “As I was saying- most of these are straightforward, and you’ve filled out the ones I would have expected you to- but some of these are things even I have never heard of- like, what the fuck is…” he carefully sounds out the next word, “Quirofilia?”
“Honestly- the ones I didn’t know about, I just sort of skipped over, hoping maybe you would know- but…” you can’t stop the sly grin that works its way onto your lips, “I guess Cheol did say I could call him if I had any questions…”
“At this point, it’s almost like this list is purposefully vague on some kinks-” Seungkwan sighs, joining you on the couch again. “I bet Psych daddy has been waiting for you to call him for extra clarification.”
“We could google it,” you point out.
“Definitely not,” Seungkwan says quickly. “Call daddy, and put him on speaker.”
“Oh, so he’s just daddy now?” you tease, pulling out your phone.
“Call him.”
“Hmm… maybe I’ll text,” you decide. “He could be busy.”
“That’s no fun,” Seunkwan whines, pouting out his lower lip.
“Too bad,” you tell him, typing in a quick message. “I said, ‘hey, whenever you have time, I have a few questions about some of the terms on the kink list.’”
“Add a smiley face,” your friend urges, “so he knows it’s like- good questions.”
You add a happy emoji, and hit send. Then you put your phone down, reaching for the papers from Seungkwan.
“He might not answer anytime soon-” you say- just as your phone buzzes the familiar ringtone that you’ve only given to one person.
Both you and Seungkwan stare at your ringing phone, and then your best friend grins at you.
“This guy is so whipped for you it’s crazy- are you sure you haven’t sucked his dick?”
“Oh my god stop!” you groan, “and be quiet or I can’t answer-”
“I’ll be quiet,” he insists, pretending to lock his mouth shut and throw away the key.
With one final warning glare, you turn your focus to your phone, answering the call. “Hello?”
“Hey, gorgeous,” comes Seungcheol’s unmistakable smooth drawl- god, he makes your mouth fucking water- “So you got around to looking at the kink list.”
He’s so god damned confident- and when you look up at Seungkwan, you see he’s just as shook by your new lover as you are.
“Uh, yes,” you clear your throat. “There are just a few terms I’m unfamiliar with, and- I know I could look them up, but you said to call you if I had questions-”
“Of course Angel, I’d love to help talk you through it.”
Your panties are wet.
They’re wet, and your best friend is nearly falling off the couch from how seductive your new sugar daddy is.
“What kinks are you unfamiliar with?” Seungcheol prompts, and you can practically hear him smiling at the way he’s taking your breath away on a freaking phone call-
“There’s this one,” your eyes scan over the word Quirofilia, and you do your best not to mangle it the way Seungkwan had when you relay it to Cheol.
“Quirofilia,” he repeats, teaching you the proper pronunciation with the calm, pleasant tone you’re starting to fall in love with. “It’s another term for a hand kink.”
Now it’s your turn to echo, and you say “A hand kink,” while blinking at your friend.
“Yes, angel,” Seungcheol chuckles on the other end. “If you check off the box for receiving, you’d indicate that you’d be more than comfortable with me touching you frequently. For lack of a better term, it goes hand in hand with a number of other kinks- spanking and choking for example, or finger sucking.”
“And for giving?” you question, having already checked off a yes for what he’s just described.
“For giving…” he clears his throat, “well, you’d let me pay for you to get manicures- maybe let me choose the colours and styles-” there’s another pause, then “I have to admit, I did notice that you have nice hands the first night we met.”
“Really?” your heart lurches in your chest and Seungkwan grabs a pillow to bite while listening in on a conversation that’s getting sexier and sexier- “What did you like about them?”
“They’re smaller than mine, for one. I’m sure we can both imagine how pretty they’d look wrapped around something… substantially bigger.”
Your best friend spasms, practically screaming into the pillow, and you can’t help the way your own jaw drops at the statement-
Are you about to have phone sex with Cheol in front of your best friend?
Do you need to get a room?
“We can discuss it in detail when I see you next,” Seungcheol says, cutting off your horny thoughts. “Are there any other kinks you’ve had trouble with?”
“I mean-” part of you wants to go through the whole list and pretend not to know things just to keep him on the phone- “if we’re going to discuss these all in detail when I see you next- maybe I should just wait till then?”
You can’t believe you’re cock blocking yourself just because Seungkwan is here.
“We can do that,” Seungcheol says smoothly.
In the background, you hear someone say his name, and you find yourself asking, “did I catch you at a bad time?” suddenly worried you’ve interrupted something important.
“Of course not, angel, I wouldn’t have called you if I couldn’t step away for a few minutes.” There’s a pause then, “I’m at a conference this weekend, flew out this morning.”
“Oh,” your heart deflates a little.
“I was tempted to invite you,” Seungcheol says, calming the uneasiness you’re feeling. “But seeing as you’ve not signed anything, and I already had plans with colleagues, I figured this wouldn’t be the best first trip to take you on.”
This excites you again. “Do you have somewhere specific in mind for a first trip?”
“Somewhere warm,” he answers smoothly, a small chuckle following a moment later. “Anyways, I won’t be that available tomorrow, you caught me at a good moment tonight.”
“Well… will you be back on Monday?” you question.
Another small laugh, then, “Are you that eager to see me, gorgeous?”
“Maybe.” You eye Seungkwan who’s still screaming into the pillow. “But I mean- I remember what you said about needing a sugar baby that fits your schedule, so, I don’t want to pressure you to see me the day you get back from a work conference-”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, angel,” his smooth voice calms your anxieties. “I do have quite a busy week, a few things aren’t pinned down yet, can I let you know when I have more details?”
“Yes, of course-” you bite at your lip. “I should let you get back to your colleagues- thanks for calling me and talking me through uh- Quirofilia.”
You hear him take a deep breath, and then, Seungcheol lets out something like a groan- “I’m tempted to ask what you checked off for it.”
His words go straight to your pussy and after a moment of silence you ask, “Do you want me to tell you?”
“No,” he responds, “It will give me something to think about tonight if you don’t tell me.”
“Okay,” you grin at the way he’s toying with himself- ego fuelled by the idea of him thinking about you- “I’m excited to talk more about this with you when I see you next.”
“Me too, angel.”
“Have a great time at your conference daddy.”
You slap a hand over your mouth, eyes widening at the way the term of endearment just slipped out of you-
Seungcheol lets out a deep sigh that betrays how much the word has affected him, and he sounds less composed than normal when he says, “Thank you, precious, enjoy your evening.”
You hang up, and as soon as you have, Seungkwan goes ballistic, practically pouncing at you while screaming, “That was too sexy! You guys are too sexy, what the hell!?”
Laughing at his antics is easy- pretending your panties aren’t ruined is another story.
5: Sunday
The ringtone that makes your whole body tingle with anticipation is becoming more and more familiar, and you practically launch yourself across your bed to answer your phone.
“Hi.”
A small chuckle, and a breath, then, “Hey you.”
“How's your conference going?” you ask, having not expected to hear from Cheol today.
“Good. It’s over, we finished the last meet up just before dinner. What are you up to?”
You grin to yourself, playing with the book in your lap. “I’m reading your most recent publication.”
“My most recent publication?” you can hear him smiling now too, and you enjoy the way he teases your choice of phrase. “Since when were you going out and buying my books, darling?”
“Since I saw how many you’ve done- when you showed me your library. I went out this morning and got two.”
“You could have asked, and I would have given you them for free… with a detailed note from the author.”
“I was eager to begin reading,” you admit. “And you’re so busy- I’m still not sure when I’m seeing you next.”
“That’s actually why I called. I took a look at my schedule, and I’ve got options for you.”
“Ooh! I love options.”
Another smile you can hear through the phone, and your heart beats a little faster.
“I can see you alone on Friday, it’s the earliest day I have available- but if you’d like, you can accompany me to a get-together with my work colleagues on Wednesday. I know you haven’t signed any papers and we haven’t discussed anything in detail yet but… I have a good feeling about you, angel, and I’d enjoy having you there.”
“Then of course I’ll go with you to the get-together,” you announce, grinning like a school girl at the inklings of praise he bestows on you.
“That’s wonderful news, gorgeous.” - you love it when he calls you pretty pet names - “I’m sorry that this call can’t be longer- but I’ll see you Wednesday- and I’m sure I’ll find a reason to call you before then.”
“Yes, please.”
He laughs, and the sound has your core buzzing with interest- how the hell is Seungcheol so sexy without even trying?
“Have a good night, angel, and don’t read too much of my book- they’re all depressing.”
“They’re informative,” you insist. “Have a wonderful night Cheol, and thanks for calling.”
6: Monday
“Hi.”
You’ve gotta stop answering your phone with a full grin- but every time Seungcheol calls you, you can’t help but get warm and fuzzy all over.
“Hi, angel.”
And wet. Wet all over.
Wet where it counts.
“I was just thinking about you,” you confess, toying with the page of his book that you’ve been reading.
“Funny, I was just thinking about you,” he responds, “and I have been, all day. It’s quite distracting actually.”
“Really?” Your heart leaps again.
“I was thinking about getting you something to wear to the party on Wednesday- was going to get Seokmin to drop it off at your place, but then… I realized how much I’d rather see you and give you the dress in person, to see your reaction.”
This man gives you full on heart palpitations- and it takes everything in you to clear your throat and ask, “so does this mean I’ll see you before Wednesday, or?”
“I mean… I don’t want to assume you’re free every night- but if you’re not otherwise busy tomorrow-”
“I always have time for you daddy,” you smile, “and I’ll sign a contract to prove it.”
He lets out a shaky breath, and you love that you’re having an effect on him. “That’s good to hear sweetheart. I’ll move a few things around. How does seven sound?”
“Seven sounds perfect.”
“And it will be a longer stay this time. I know I kept our last interaction at my home brief- but if you bring all the documents I gave you, we can…” he clears his throat, “discuss them in full, tomorrow, if you’d like”
“I’d love that,” you admit.
“Seokmin will be at your place to pick you up at seven then, angel. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I can’t wait either.”
7: Tuesday
Seungcheol is a man who strives for perfection. From his home and work, all the way down to the pretty present he’s gotten for you, the box wrapped in a golden bow-
And when you open your gift to reveal an expensive red fabric just itching to be touched- you think there’s a possibility that you might very much be in love with the psychologist already.
“It’s beautiful-” you breathe, pulling the silky garment from its box to assess the length and style.
“You were wearing red when we first met,” Seungcheol tells you, “I thought to myself that I’d never seen such a gorgeous girl- when I invited you to the gettogether tomorrow, I knew there was only one colour I truly wanted to see you in.”
Your heart is having palpitations, you swear-
“Do you-” you swallow thickly, looking up at him, “do you want me to try it on for you now?”
It’s his turn to take a shaky breath, and after a stagnant pause, he shakes his head, “No. I think I’d like to be surprised tomorrow- besides, after we get done looking over the papers and contracts, I feel as if we’d both prefer you to be taking off clothes rather than putting them on.”
He’s right about that.
You only wish you’d known about his affinity for the color red before you’d chosen a black lingerie set, knowing that tonight would be the night he’d finally strip you bare-
You can’t wait for him to fuck you. You honestly can’t- and all these paper signings- they’re just a formality for you.
As far as you’re concerned, Cheol is the one- or at least, he could be the one.
Or maybe he’s just the ‘for now,’ but regardless, for now, you want to be ravenously fucking him-
“My easily distractable darling,” he gently pinches at your chin, pulling you from your dirty thoughts. “Let’s see the papers.”
After putting the dress back in its box, you grab the purse you’d arrived with. It’s large enough to hold the folder with the documents, which you pull out next, setting it down on Seungcheol’s kitchen counter.
“I see you’ve printed out the other documents I sent you since we last met,” he says, and you can hear the pride in his voice that you’d gone a step above and beyond what he’d asked of you.
After your last date, wherein you’d gotten the kink list, he’d sent you an email with a link to a contractual pdf. Once you’d gone over the contract in detail on your computer, you’d printed it out, eager to sign your name- but you’d been patient, knowing he’d probably want to witness your signature being jotted down on the dotted line.
“I’m ready to sign them,” you tell him, also pulling a pen out of your purse-
“Eager angel,” he smiles, taking the seat on the barstool next to yours. “Are you sure you don’t want to read it all over one more time?”
“I’m sure,” you tell him, angling your body towards his and fiddling with your pen.
“Alright,” Seungcheol nods, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down, his forearms flexing. “How about you let me sign first, then you can do your own signature.”
You hold out your pen, which he accepts, and you watch the way he adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose when he looks down at the contract. His eyes scan over the document, and a moment later, the ballpoint pen is gliding languidly across the dotted line, his signature solidified in a binding agreement.
“There we go,” he says smoothly, holding the pen out for you to take.
Within seconds, two signatures are on the contract, and your heart is racing just a little faster in anticipation of what’s to come next.
“And now to look over your kink list,” Seungcheol breathes, moving the signed papers to the side.
Your heart lurches when he picks up the sheet you’ve filled in, and you stay silent while his eyes move over each line of information.
“As much as these all interest me,” he says, “I’m pleased to see you’ve checked off giving and receiving for quirofilia.” His large hand moves to rest on top of your thigh, and he gives you a gentle squeeze, eyes shifting from the paper to your own. “Will you allow me to book a manicure for you tomorrow? In preparation for the get-together?”
“Yes, please,” you rest your hand on top of his own.
“We’ll have to get your nails matching your new dress,” he tells you smoothly, setting the paper down in favour of pushing a strand of hair away from your face, his index finger gently gliding past your cheekbone. “And there will be another present for you tomorrow.”
“Another?” you’re nearly dizzy from how well he treats you-
“Another,” he confirms, taking off his glasses to set down before standing from the bar stool.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?” you ask, allowing him to prompt you to your own feet, both of his hands gently capturing your own.
Seungcheol gives his head a small shake, a smile on his lips when he responds with a “no.”
Something inside of you deflates slightly at the fact that he’s withholding information from you, and you can’t help the way you pout your lower lip out - just a little - in an effort to perhaps make him change his mind-
“Come on, angel,” Seungcheol laughs, pinching your chin and forcing you to look up at him. His dark chocolate colored eyes are swimming with adoration, and his small half smile is breathtaking- “you can be patient for one more day, can’t you?”
“Depends what for,” you admit, reaching your free hand out to hook your fingers in the front of his belt, pulling yourself closer to the man who’s as solid as any brick wall you’ve ever seen-
“Patience for the next present,” he clarifies, gaze dipping down to your lips as you move even closer to him- “not for anything else.”
“Promise?” you ask, pushing onto your tip toes- mouths even closer-
“Promise,” Seungcheol says, finally closing the distance between you.
His lips are soft- he’s a gentleman, and his hand moves from your chin to be cupping the nape of your neck, the other smoothing down to the small of your back.
It’s chaste kissing- too chaste for you, and you wrap your arms around the back of his own neck, pressing your chest up against his.
You don’t want any more distance between you, and you especially don’t want to wait any longer for this man to fuck the ever-loving shit out of you.
“Cheol-” you groan, allowing him to tilt your head and slide his tongue along your lower lip.
“Yes, angel?” His voice is so deep and sexy, the vibrations of it going straight through from his chest to your own and then down to your tingling core-
“Daddy, please-”
“I would ask you to use your words, but now that you’ve filled out your kink list-” he swallows thickly, gently pressing his forehead to yours, “I think I have a pretty good idea of what you’d enjoy.”
In the back of your mind, you remember that you’d said yes to most of the kinks on the list- so you’re not sure how - exactly - he’s going to narrow it down and decide on what to do to you today- but there’s another part of you that trusts him fully.
Tonight is going to be a night to remember, regardless of what kinks he fulfills for you.
“Wait-” your hands move from his strong shoulders to the front of his dress shirt, toying with the buttons there, “I never saw your kink list.”
“Would you like to?”
You nod.
“Another time then,” Seungcheol says smoothly, “tonight, I want to take care of you. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds good,” you admit, tugging on his shirt in an effort to pull him closer.
With a smile, Seungcheol concedes, lips finding yours again.
Instead of being as chaste as he had at the start, with each brush of your mouths against each other, he’s becoming more bold, gently testing your limits-
Little does he know that when it comes to him, you have no hard limits.
He could talk you into just about anything- but part of you knows he’d never really try to talk you into much, which is one of the reasons why you’re so open for him.
As he kisses you harder, and you tug him even closer, you realize you’re practically trying to climb him- and in one motion, Seungcheol bends down and lifts you into his arms bridal style, being mindful of the black dress still adorning your body.
“I’m going to take you to my bedroom now,” he tells you, and you take the opportunity to begin speckling his neck and underjaw in kisses, your hands tugging and toying with the fabric covering his broad shoulders.
It’s so easy to become lost in him- his gentle, calming aura truly overtakes you, and now that you’re contractually under his protection - both financially and romantically - nothing else does matter-
Nothing except him.
You want to make Seungcheol happy- and you note his reactions, note the way he releases a shuddery breath when you find a sensitive spot just under his ear- your tongue dipping out to taste his skin while you press kisses there-
“Okay, angel,” he sighs, “time to set you down.”
He places you gently onto his bed before straightening to look at you.
Seungcheol has always been tall and broad- but towering over you at the foot of his bed while you lay there with soaked panties takes him to new heights - literally - and you find yourself practically drooling- sitting up in an effort to get close to him again-
“Nuh uh uh,” he tuts, pressing one knee onto the mattress between your legs. “Lift your arms so I can take this dress off of you, and then lay back down for me, yeah?”
You follow through with his request gladly, allowing him to strip you of your dress before you flatten against his bed again, looking up at him with a lustful wonder that you’ve never truly experienced.
“There’s my pretty girl,” Seungcheol says smoothly, discarding your dress before looking down at you with appreciative eyes- eyes that finally take in some of your best features, gliding across your breasts and the lingerie set you’re wearing- “You dressed up for me,” he notes.
“Of course, daddy,” you sigh, reaching for him when he presses his other knee onto the bed, “wanted to look good for you.”
“You always look good,” he tells you, flattening his form over your own, one hand pressed to the mattress next to your head while the other gently grasps your jaw. “My pretty little angel,” he says, breath fanning across your skin before his lips find your own.
You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer and looking for friction between your thighs-
A moan slips out of you when you feel his cock, pressing against the front of his pants deliciously-
Seungcheol chuckles into your kiss before pulling away from you, his lips moving to your neck-
“So sensitive, baby,” he says, rutting forward ever so slightly- cock dragging past your panty-clad core and making you groan again. “When was the last time you were properly touched?”
“It’s been a while,” you admit, swallowing thickly and lacing your fingers through Seungcheol’s hair while he kisses down to the swell of your breasts, still captured in your bra.
“Well, we’re going to change that.”
“We better,” you retort, back already arching off the bed to give him access to the clasp of your bra- which he undoes with deft fingers. “Take it off- please-”
The garment slips off of you easily, and Seungcheol tosses it to join your dress on the floor before his large, warm hand is cupping your breast, lips attaching to one nipple while his fingers toy with the other.
Small gasps of ecstasy escape you, filling the room with your whimpery sounds of need.
Your new lover focuses on your breasts in a way that begins to make you frustrated, your pussy clenching with untouched desire- and the feeling of Seungcheol’s muscled shoulders is almost too much for your hands, which can’t help but explore his body-
“Please-” you moan, shifting your hips up, eager for him to grind down on you again-
The hand on your breast is removed, and it slips between your bodies, two fingers pressing to your pussy through your panties.
You release a whimper, body shuddering at the small stimulus on your clit-
“Your panties are soaked, angel,” he says, releasing your breast in favor of looking down at you again. “Do you really need me that much?”
“I do,” you tell him sincerely, once more tugging at the front of his shirt. “I need you so bad-”
Your fingers begin to undo his buttons, but your motions are shaky, especially as he rubs your core harder, teasing you through your panties-
“Please- just take them off,” you groan. “Take it all off-”
Seungcheol grins, “If you insist,” and then he’s pulling away from you, leaving you cold and desperate, your hands trying to follow him-
But then you stop, zoning in on the way his own nimble fingers undo the buttons of his shirt-
And then he’s shrugging the fabric off, revealing a chiseled torso and an abdomen that you could wash clothes on-
“You’re so-” you groan, unable to even believe you’d found a man like this on a sugar dating site.
“I’m so…” he looks at you with a cocked brow, kneeling between your legs, his hands finding your thighs and smoothing down against your skin.
“You’re everything,” you tell him, unable to think through much else.
The complement works, and Seungcheol’s smile widens. “Thank you, angel,” he says. “Daddy’s going to eat you now.”
You’re so overwhelmed- in the best of ways- that you hardly even hear Seungkwan’s voice in the back of your mind screaming ‘hannibal the cannibal, bitch!’
Your best friend had been so wrong about Seungcheol- who gets down onto his knees at the foot of the bed, dragging you closer before hooking his fingers in your panties-
You lift your hips, allowing him to tug the fabric from your form, leaving you completely naked-
Seungcheol releases a breath that fans over your pussy, his lips pressing a wet kiss on your inner thigh.
“You’re so perfect,” he says, teeth grazing past your skin before he finally brings his mouth where you need him most.
You can’t help but reach down and tangle your fingers through his hair, determined to keep him between your thighs-
And he doesn’t disappoint, tongue licking you up and down, pressing through your pussy lips and dipping into your core, nose brushing by your clit-
“Cheol-” you whimper, toes curling at the sensation.
You’ve been eaten out before, but you’ve never been as into a man as you are with Seungcheol, and every brush of him against you has you practically whining and tingling with ecstasy.
You’d never thought sex could be this good- and he hasn’t even fucked you yet.
His tongue is nothing compared to what his cock is going to feel like- but his mouth alone is bringing you shockingly close to your high, devastatingly fast.
Seungcheol releases a groan against your pussy, pulling away just enough to ask “close already, angel?”
“Mmm- yes,” you whimper, tightening your grip in his hair on an effort to bring him back to your pussy.
“You can cum, just- let me know,” he tells you, tongue returning to your aching hole, lapping at you for all you’re worth-
You find your eyes closing, your head resting back against his bed while his ministrations work you closer and closer to the edge-
One of your feet drags along his strong back, your legs threatening to close around his head as your sounds of pleasure begin to tumble out of you uncensored, filling the room-
Seungcheol presses his face against you even harder, lips wrapping around your clit-
“Cheol- I’m gonna-” you whine, breaths becoming irregular as you get closer and closer to cloud nine- “oh my god-” you reach the peak of pleasure, and a gasped “daddy” escapes you as you’re consumed with your orgasm, quivering legs trying to close around Seungcheol-
But two hands land on your inner thighs, forcing you open for the man who eats you through your high like he’s been starved-
Perhaps you both have.
You haven’t felt something this good in- maybe ever, and all you’re able to do is tug on his hair, moan loudly, and rut your hips against his face while you feel him tingling through every fiber of your being.
Seungcheol works you through your entire orgasm and then some, until your legs feel like jelly from being tensed, and you can hardly breathe correctly. Then, he pulls away from you slowly, pressing kisses along your inner thigh-
You open your eyes to look down at him, and you’re met with a visual that has you getting wet all over again.
The gorgeous man between your legs, wipes his thumb across his lower lip, collecting what’s there and slipping it into his mouth, releasing a groan that has you practically twitching-
His pupils are blown with interest, and he’s breathing just as heavily as you are.
He stands up, towering over you once more.
Seungcheol swallows thickly, running a hand through his hair. “I’m guessing from the way you checked off cum play and breeding kink that you’re on some sort of contraceptive?”
You release a small laugh- no man has ever used the word contraceptive in the bedroom with you before. Cheol is so sexy with his fancy words-
“Hey,” he gently taps your inner thigh again, “are you alright?”
“Yes, I-” you take a breath, “sorry, I’m just-” you can’t help but reach for him, making something like grabby hands in the air.
“I’ll give you a second to come down a bit more,” he concedes, returning between your legs, holding himself just over your body while you attempt to latch onto him, ankles crossing behind his back to lock him in- “You really haven’t been properly touched in a while,” he notes, brushing your hair out of your face and behind your ear.
“No,” you agree, “I haven’t.”
You cup his face, eager for his lips to be on yours, but he holds just out of your reach, grinning down at you. “Almost ready to answer my question?”
You nod, taking a breath before telling him, “I’m on the pill.”
“Lucky us,” Seungcheol says, bypassing your lips in favour of pressing a kiss to your neck, just above your fluttering pulse point. “How are you feeling?”
“Good,” you admit, letting out a deep sigh- “needy.”
Seungcheol releases a small groan, and he pushes his hips forward, teasing your bare core with the front of his dress pants- “Yeah?”
“Please-” you tug gently at his hair, “stop teasing me.”
“Just trying to let you take a breath,” he retorts.
“I don’t want to breathe,” you say stubbornly, “I want you.”
He lets out a chuckle, and you find yourself wanting to prove how much you want him.
There’s no way in hell that you’ll be able to dominate Seungcheol, he’s as sturdy as a bear laying on top of you, but when you push at his shoulders, he relents, allowing you to roll him onto his back so you’re now the one on top.
He blinks up at you, lips parting-
“Didn’t expect this, did you, daddy?” you ask, placing your palms flat on his chest while adjusting the way you’re seated, capturing his cock between your bodies-
Seungcheol sits up abruptly- and you almost think he’s going to say something, but instead, he presses his lips to yours, capturing the nape of your neck with his hand so you can’t move away.
His kiss is hungry, tongue gliding past your own and earning a mewl of pleasure- your hips rock slightly, and you’re immediately aggrieved to be reminded that he still has pants on.
“Want you naked,” you tell him between kisses, “want to taste you-”
Now it’s his turn to let out a groan of eager delight, and he lets go of his hold on your neck, pulling away from your lips to look you in the eyes while he grabs a fistful of your hair, tugging ever so slightly to have your head arching back- “You sure about that?”
“God, yes-” you moan, licking your lips-
“Then go ahead, angel,” Seungcheol says, releasing you. “Do whatever your heart desires, and if you get tired, let daddy know so he can take over again.”
You’ve never been wetter in your life. Nor have you ever shimmied down a man’s body and wrestled with his pants so quick, but with Seungcheol, that’s precisely what you do, and within no time at all, you have your mouth wrapped around the head of his cock.
He’s girthy- and you can just imagine how good the stretch of him is going to feel-
You’re practically drooling on him, bobbing your head up and down while he pushes your hair out of your face, releasing a groan and a “that’s it, angel” that eggs you on even more.
You’re aware that you don’t want to make him cum like this- this is just you returning the favour before riding him-
God, you want to ride him so bad- like you’ve never wanted to ride any man in your whole entire life.
“Fuck-”
It’s the first swearword you’ve ever heard come out of Seungcheol’s mouth, and it goes straight to your pussy, which clenches around nothing, your mouth slipping down far enough on his cock that you choke-
“Careful, darling,” the hand in your hair tugs you off his cock, and you take a gasp of air, sneaking a glance up at the man who has you going feral-
“I wanna ride you.”
“Like I said, do whatever your heart desires,” comes his almost casual response-
This man is going to be the death of you.
Death by psychologist cock.
Before you can even think a coherent sentence, you’re straddling Seungcheol’s hips, adjusting his cock to fit snuggly against your core, and sinking down on him, filling yourself inch by delicious inch until you’re sat atop him like a queen on her throne.
His hands find your waist, and you both release sounds of pleasure, your eyes closing to enjoy the feeling of being perfectly full for just a moment before you begin to move-
“Feels good, huh?” he prompts, squeezing your hips gently.
“Feels fucking fantastic,” you tell him- swear words be damned.
Your hands find his strong chest, and you lean over him, connecting your lips while you take a test thrust, bouncing just slightly on his cock-
The feeling is enough to have you both groaning into each other’s mouths, Seungcheol cupping the side of your face while he gently bites at your lower lip-
You’re not used to being on top- and it feels obvious in the shallow way you’re riding him, too distracted in kissing to give either motion your full attention-
But that doesn’t matter, because Seungcheol is rutting up to meet you, matching your slow pace and helping you find a steady rhythm with the hand still on your hip, guiding you as you begin to bounce.
It feels like heaven to be fucking Choi Seungcheol- feels like nothing you could have ever imagined.
You find yourself getting lost in him, working on autopilot with one destination in mind: orgasmic pleasure, and with each thrust of his hips to meet you, he helps you get closer.
“Fuck, Cheol-” you groan, tearing your lips from his to take a breath, burying your face against his neck while your thighs burn from effort- “Daddy, please- please, fuck me-”
That’s all you need to say to get him to take over, flipping you onto your back so he can regain the top position. He captures your hands, raising them over your head where he can lock your wrists together in his strong grip, then his free digits slip between your bodies, seeking out your clit-
“Oh my god,” you moan, eyes closing as you’re overwhelmed in the sensation of him-
“Close already, sweetheart?” he questions, letting out a smug, sexy, little chuckle. “Feels that good?”
“Yes- feels so good,” you tell him, ready to say anything he wants you to if it means he fucks you harder-
His fingers draw small quick circles on your clit, and your legs twitch where they’re wrapped around his waist.
“I’ve hardly even fucked you- you can hold it a little longer, can’t you darling?” he prompts, nosing at your cheek. “For me?”
“I can-” you groan as he fucks you harder, “I can try- but- my clit-”
“Is this making it difficult for you?” Seungcheol smiles, relenting ever so slightly and then removing his hand all together in favour of wrapping it around your throat. “There, is that better?”
He squeezes your airway, and you’re simply unable to speak, unable to do anything but moan like a whore in heat while he fucks you closer and closer to an orgasm you’re desperately trying to hold off for him-
“You feel-” he lets out a groan, “unbelievable.”
No, he feels unbelievable, and you can’t even touch him with your hands still pinned-
You think if you could graze your fingers across his strong shoulders you’d cum instantly, so maybe it’s a good thing he has your wrists in his grasp-
“I think I want you to cum now,” he decides, and you’re thankful- only for him to release your throat and rub your clit, which has you whining loudly all over again- “You’ll cum with me, right?”
“God, daddy- yes!” you whimper- the coil in your stomach clenching as tightly as ever-
Then he releases your wrists, anchoring a hand against your abdomen to keep you down while he works you over the edge- and your own fingers immediately seek out the shoulders that have you dizzy with lust, core clamping down on his cock as you’re high hits you full force.
“Cheol-” you whimper, delighted by the way he immediately presses his lips to yours, eagerly eating up your sounds of pleasure and returning them with grunts and groans of his own while fucking you through one of the best orgasms of your entire life.
His tongue dances by yours, teeth teasing past your lip-
Your fingers are in his hair and you can feel him practically everywhere, your entire body alight with wonderful sensations of bliss-
It starts to slow too soon, but every up must have a down, and as his hips lose pace and your sounds lessen, you realize you’re truly, madly, deeply in love with Choi Seungcheol.
And you’ve known him for less than a week.
8: Wednesday
“Are you settling in okay?” Bora’s voice pulls you away from your daydreaming, and you tear your eyes off of Seungcheol to focus on the woman whose house you’ve been enjoying for much of the evening.
She’d been introduced to you as Seungcheol’s colleague’s wife, and you’ve yet to get any one on one with the very pregnant hostess, whose husband, Mingyu, has been circling her like a puppy this entire time.
“Yes,” you respond, finding your voice, “you have a very easy home to settle into.”
“I appreciate that,” she smiles, taking the free seat on the sofa next to you, one hand settling over her protruding stomach in a maternal way that makes your heart soften. “I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you since you arrived, but both of us seem to have a plus one that’s attached at the hip.”
Now it’s her turn to look over at Seungcheol and Mingyu, who are huddled around another psychologist friend of theirs, Wonwoo, and his wife, their attention fixed on the youngest member of the housewarming party, a six-month-old baby named Yumi.
“I feel as if I’m the plus one,” you say.
“Don’t be modest,” Bora brushes it off with a smile, “Cheol has had his hand on the small of your back for most of the evening. As much as they like to pretend they’re big shot psychologists, we’re the crutches that get them through the evening.”
You take a moment to consider her words.
This is the first event you’ve gone to with your new beau, and for much of it, you’ve been as intent to stick to Cheol’s side as he has been to yours.
“Trust me,” Bora continues, “give it a few minutes and they’ll migrate over here to be close to us.” She pauses, then, “Mingyu has to get used to being in the living room, a pregnant woman like me needs a good, comfortable seat.”
You both laugh at the way she touches her belly again, pushing it out and relaxing back on the sofa.
“How far along are you?” you ask.
Despite already having had dinner and discussion for an hour or two, much of the focus has been on the home and various publications that the four university friends have been working on, with Wonwoo’s wife Minji having arrived with Yumi only a short while ago.
“Eight months,” Bora sighs, continuing to stroke her baby bump. “I’m just about ready to pop. But enough about me and my belly, you’ve hardly spoken about yourself- and Cheol is always so focused on work, I’ve yet to get many details out of him, other than the fact that you’re worth skipping book club for. Did you two have a hot date last night?”
Your skin heats with embarrassment- “I didn’t know he’d skipped book club for me-”
“It’s a loose arrangement, Tuesdays at seven, I’m only teasing you,” Bora leans over to nudge you with her shoulder, offering you a sweet smile. “How did you two meet?”
The nondisclosure agreement pops into your mind like a red warning sign.
“Erm…” you swallow, “Cheol hasn’t told you?”
“Like I said, he’s very tight-lipped about it,” Bora explains. “But- I’ve never known Seungcheol to be a fan of changing his schedule- and the pearl necklace you’re wearing- the dress, your lovely nails- they all seem like gifts to me. Am I right?”
Her husband might be a psychologist, but Bora has just as much of a critical eye. She sees right through you.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” Bora waves your silence off, “I know I’m right. I’ll figure you two out.”
“Are you being nosy again, Mrs. Kim?” Vernon, the fourth and quietest man of your new lover’s friend group joins you in the living room, taking a seat on the single chair to your left.
“Always,” Bora responds with a smile. “Wait, Vernon, maybe you know more about this. Y/N is being no fun- Cheol must have told you where and when they met-”
Vernon’s mouth opens in something like recognition-
“Ah ha!” Bora exclaims, leaning closer to you, sandwiching you in while she presses for more information. “So you do know!”
“I do, but-” Vernon looks at you, then he leans in too, his voice dipping to something near a whisper, “Are we allowed to talk about this?”
“Allowed?” Now Bora is even more hooked on finding the truth than before, and her gaze darts between you and the man on your left, who obviously knows at least a few details about you and Seungcheol’s ‘origin story.’
Due to the NDA, all you can do is sit there like a fish out of water, and you find yourself looking to Seungcheol, hoping he’ll see you in distress and come over to sort things out-
“Let’s just say-” Vernon sighs, giving in to the pregnant woman’s need for information, “Y/N, you seem like a great girl- as kind, calm, collected, and smart as Seungcheol told us you were- but, I am shocked he found you on a dating site.”
“A dating site?” Bora’s eyes have widened, and she shuffles closer to you on the couch, jaw dropped. “Stop- when I told him to try online dating after his last girlfriend I was honestly joking- everyone knows Tinder is hookup central these days.”
Bora is as inquisitive as anyone you’ve ever met, and she checks you and Vernon for your reactions, easily picking up on the shift of energy-
“Wait, not tinder?” She pauses, waiting for an answer. When it becomes obvious neither you nor Vernon are going to elaborate, she sighs and sits back a little. “Now that I think of it, tinder is an app, not a site- the only dating sites I can think of online are-”
It’s like a lightbulb goes off atop her head, and her jaw drops a little more- then she’s inching in close to you again, whispering as Vernon had done earlier, “You know what? Now that we’re discussing it- a sugar daddy site would be perfect for Cheol.”
Vernon groans, throwing his hand over his eyes and leaning forward. It’s clear he’d expected to be able to talk to you in something of vague code without Bora picking up on it- but it seems he’s underestimated the astute woman next to you.
“You guys are horrible at keeping secrets,” Bora grins, sneaking a glance at Seungcheol, who’s now picked up baby Yumi- “This is so interesting.”
“The plot thickens,” you offer, unable to say much more than that.
“Oh my god, stop,” Bora says playfully, poking your arm. “Obviously there’s some… agreement that’s been made between you and Cheol, so I’ll try not to prod you for much more information,” she promises, “but I’ll talk to Cheol and the next time we meet, you’ll be able to speak more freely.”
“The next time we meet?” you ask, wondering how the woman can be so sure of herself in every regard.
“We’ll meet again,” she tells you. “Trust me, anyone watching you and Seungcheol- well, anyone who knows him, can tell he really likes you.”
Your heart skips a beat. “You think?”
Bora smiles at you. “Sweet girl, it’s obvious. Trust me, Seungcheol doesn’t bring around just anyone to parties with us, and like I said, he doesn’t often change his schedule for girls either. I don’t care what site you met on, you have that man whipped.”
“Bora-” the psychologist on your left groans.
“Vernon,” she retorts with the same tone.
They exchange a glance, a battle for dominance, and Bora wins, Vernon releasing a sigh before leaning back in his chair.
“You know what is surprising?” he asks.
“Tell us,” Bora mirrors him, relaxing back against the couch.
“How good Cheol is being with Yumi tonight.” Vernon is watching his friends and the baby again, and soon all three of you are.
“That’s a good point, Vernon,” Bora grins, nudging you a little with her elbow. “I wonder why that is?”
You think her intuition has finally run dry. She can’t be insinuating that you’re partially the reason behind Seungcheol’s apparent baby fever-
And if she is, she has another shock coming for her when she finally talks to Cheol and finds out that ‘no babies’ was one of the clauses of your dating agreement.
“I think, Cheol’s the kind of man who likes seeing people happy, and Yumi is very expressive” you offer. “People can like babies without wanting one for themselves.”
Bora lets out a scoff. “Right, Mingyu and I always thought we just ‘liked babies,’ and now look at me. Liking babies is always how it starts, and before you know it, nine months have gone by, you’ve turned into a balloon and are buying a new home big enough to raise a family in.”
You are envious of her position, but at the same time, you’re acutely aware that you and Cheol are extremely new to each other. He’s not the kind of man to be hasty- or at least, you’d thought he wasn’t, but as Bora had mentioned, Seungcheol doesn’t introduce just anyone to his friends.
You’ll have to talk with him about this and you know it, but until then, it’s enough to just sit between his friends and watch him play with Yumi, who seems to give everyone in the vicinity a serious case of baby fever.
9: Thursday
“Hold up-” Seungkwan says, interrupting you with a wave of his hands, and they land on your knees, “wait a minute- so he makes you sign an NDA, and then invites you out with his friends, and one of them like- bombards you for an hour about him-”
“It wasn’t an hour-”
“Sure-”
“And she wasn’t bombarding,” you correct.
“Ok, fine, yeah, whatever- but then-” Seungkwan takes a deep breath, “he also has a thing about no babies, and in the first week- straight up rubs a baby in your face for an entire night-”
“Yumi was only there for an hour or so before we left-”
“And then!” your best friend interrupts you again, “on the car ride home, instead of discussing it with him like adults- ya’ll put up the separation between you and his hot as fuck driver, and nearly fucked in the back seat-”
“Oh my god, stop-” you groan, “I told you, it was just kissing-”
“With you straddling the man!” Seunkwan yells back. “And all of this, after he switched his schedule to fuck you on Tuesday night- even though you said it would go slow-”
“Actually, he told me he wouldn’t fuck me till the third date, and if we didn’t meet Tuesday, the night with his friends on Wednesday would have been the third date, so-”
“I swear to fucking god, I have whiplash,” Seungkwan tells you, looking as serious as ever. “Ya’ll make me sick! Sick I say! What in the ever-loving fanfic is this bullshit-”
“Have you been writing more Hannibal and Will love stories again?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you going to write a fanfic about Will and Hannibal based on me and Cheol?”
“Maybe…”
“Seungkwan!”
“Well don’t tell me juicy stories if you don’t want them getting thrown in a sex fantasy! Ya’ll nearly fucked in the back of a car with a hot chauffeur-”
“I told you-” you begin to defend yourself again, only to be cut off by your phone buzzing.
Both you and Seungkwan look to your cell, placed a foot or two away on the coffee table.
“Daddy,” you both say in unison, and then you’re lurching for your phone.
“Seungkwan stop!” you screech, grabbing onto his sweater when he latches onto the device first.
“Put him on speaker!” Seungkwan declares, holding your cell just out of your reach while it rings.
“Yeah- I’ll put him on speaker-” you fold easily, “just give me the phone!”
Instead of handing it to you right away, your best friend answers the call and hits speaker, then thrusts it towards your face.
“Hi, daddy!” you blurt out, flustered from the small dust up you’d just had with your friend over the entire situation.
There’s a chuckle on the other end of the line, then “Hi, sweetheart. It sounds like I’ve interrupted something.”
“Just-” you grab the cell back from Seungkwan, “just had trouble finding my phone is all, was worried you’d be sent to voicemail.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t. It’s good to hear your voice.”
Your heart swoons, and Seungkwan grabs a pillow to scream into. “Good to hear yours too.”
“I’m just calling to see if we’re still on for tomorrow.”
“Right, yeah- do you still want to see me? I know you were very specific when we met about meeting up once or twice a week, and I’ve already seen you twice in the past three days-”
“Once or twice a week, plus the occasional group event,” Seungcheol clarifies for you. “I’d really enjoy having you over tomorrow, if you haven’t already made plans. I won’t hold it against you if you have, I can see how there might have been a small miscommunication- especially after my… erratic behavour this week, fitting you in on Tuesday- scheduling will almost always be smoother than it has been these last few days.”
“I’d love to see you tomorrow- I haven’t made any other plans.”
“Good.” You can hear him smiling. “Since it’s a Friday, and I don’t have any specific work engagements on weekends, how do you feel about bringing an overnight bag?”
Seungkwan drops his pillow.
“I would love that, too-” you say.
“Perfect. Should we say pick up at seven?”
“Sounds great.”
God, he makes everything so easy-
“Can’t wait to see you again, angel. Have a good evening, you deserve it.”
You deserved to get dicked down.
“Have a good night too, Cheol.”
10: Friday
When you exit your building, you’re shocked to find a different car - and an entirely different driver - waiting to take you to Seungcheol’s home.
The man himself is standing aside a sleek, black, two-seater sports car, dressed in his usual suit aesthetic that shows off the broadness of his shoulders-
You go feral nearly immediately, and it takes everything in you to stop from practically drooling as you close the distance between you and the man who pulls you into a hug that takes you off your feet for a greeting.
“Hey there, angel,” his breath tickles your hair and he sets you back down. He takes your hands gently, holding them out to the sides so he can get a good look at your outfit, a red dress you’d chosen, knowing it’s his favourite colour. “You look gorgeous.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” you grin, playing with his fingers.
One quick motion has him spinning you like a dancer, and you find yourself giggling like a schoolgirl.
“Ready to go?” he asks when you’ve come to a stop in front of him again.
“Uh huh,” you nod, giving your head a little shake to pull yourself from a lust-fueled daze, “sorry, I was just- I wasn’t expecting you to be the one picking me up.”
“I gave Seokmin the night off,” Seungcheol tells you, opening the car’s passenger side door and holding out a hand to help you in. “Hope that’s okay,” he leans down and presses a quick kiss to your cheek before taking your overnight bag and closing you into the vehicle.
He puts your bag in the back trunk, then slips into the driver’s seat.
Seungcheol’s hand finds your thigh, and he squeezes gently, offering you a small smile. “I know we’re planning on having you stay the night, but if you decide you don’t want to sleep over, I can always drive you home later.”
“Cheol,” you rest your hand on top of his, “I think we both know I’m not going to take you up on that offer.”
“Sure, but I figured I’d put it on the table regardless.”
You smile, leaning in to steal a kiss to his cheek, as he had when he helped you into your seat. “You’re too sweet to me.”
“You deserve it,” he insists, giving your thigh another squeeze before reaching for the ignition.
The car revs to life.
It’s hard not to stare at Seungcheol while he drives, and luckily, his hand returns to your thigh, giving you something to focus on. You take to playing with his fingers, marveling at how handsome every inch of him is.
“Vernon called me yesterday,” Seungcheol says, dragging your attention from his hands.
“Oh?”
“He admitted to slipping up and giving Bora ideas.” Seungcheol lets out a small chuckle, “said you looked like a deer in headlights when he arrived to the conversation- she was pressing you for details, huh?”
“Not in a bad way,” you tell him, wanting to defend the woman who you’re already coming to think of as a friend. “She was just- curious.”
“It’s my fault for not being specific with you about the NDA, or with Vernon for that matter- the NDA is primarily for when we go to work events outside of our inner circle, which is why your best friend is mentioned on the form you signed- it seems both Vernon and Mingyu were under the idea that I wanted to be highly secretive about us- but I’ve explained to them the nuances of it all. The next time you see Bora, please, feel free to discuss it with her, or Vernon, or Mingyu, Wonwoo, Minji- as long as you’re not too specific with Yumi, you can consider the baby a confidant as well.”
He’s obviously joking about the baby, but the mention of the child brings those same warm fuzzy conflicted feelings that you’d experienced last night at the get-together.
There will be a time to talk with Seungcheol about his seemingly dualistic baby fever and baby aversion- but tonight is not the night for it.
You’re thankful he’d even brought up the topic of Bora and the NDA, and already, what little anxiety you’d felt about this whole thing has been substantially dwindled.
“I really liked your friends,” you admit, thinking back to how pleasant the evening had been. Despite Bora’s teasing and prying, she’d been nothing but a courteous host when Seungcheol and Mingyu had predictably rejoined you in the living room.
“They liked you too, angel. I knew they would.” He lets go of your thigh in favor of gently taking your hand.
You can already feel your panties beginning to get wet-
No man’s hands have ever had this effect on you before- and maybe it has to do, in part, with the whole ‘quirofilia’ thing-
Or maybe, Cheol is simply a man made by the hands of god himself- after all, how could he be this perfect without something like divine intervention?
Before you know it, you’re at Seungcheol’s house, and he’s pulling into the underground garage, where he parks next to the rolls-royce you’re accustomed to being driven in.
Ever the gentleman, Seungcheol makes sure to come around and open your door for you, your duffle swung over his arm. He refuses to give it back to you, insisting on carrying it up to his home, where the two of you head to his bedroom instinctually.
He sets the bag down, turning to look at you, opening his mouth to say something-
But your patience has already run thin, and you all but launch yourself at the broad man, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and pressing your lips to his while his hands find your waist.
He laughs into the kiss, and you think he must not have been expecting you to jump him like this.
Doesn’t he know the effect he has on you?
“Cheol-” you groan, moving your lips to his neck-
“Eager, angel?” Seungcheol reaches down to cup your bum, prompting you to jump and wrap your legs around his waist. “It was hard being close but not able to properly touch you at the gettogether-” he says, taking a few steps back and collapsing down onto his bed, steadying you on top of him, “Could hardly even get work done today-”
“Was I that distracting for you, daddy?” you coo, teeth teasing past his earlobe.
He releases a groan, hands digging into your hips, forcing you down on his cock, which presses up against his dress pants, caught between your bodies. “Always.”
“How can I fix it?” you wonder out loud, hands already going for the buttons of his shirt. “I wanna make you feel good.”
“You do, angel,” Seungcheol tells you, “make daddy feel so good.”
“Wanna make you feel even better-” Then an idea comes to your head, “How about… a massage?” you suggest, thinking back to a paragraph you’d read from his book yesterday. “Aren’t you the one who claims relaxation time, such as stretching, massages, and the like, can be just as beneficial to the mind and body as activity itself?”
“Look at you, quoting my own work at me,” he releases a deep groan. “Are you sure that’s what you want to get up to tonight?”
“Just to start,” you tell him. “We have the whole evening- and tomorrow morning- why not start the night off with something like a massage? And work our way into…” you swivel your hips, “harder things.”
“I like the sound of that, angel,” he confesses with another sigh of pleasure as you kiss the sweet spot just under his ear. “But you’ve got to let me get up so I can grab massage oil.”
You’d forgotten about that part, and the idea of letting Seungcheol leave you - even for a moment - brings out a bratty side of you that you’ve never truly experienced.
It takes all your willpower to concede, getting off of the man who sits up and runs a hand through his hair. “You okay?” he questions, seeing the shift in your energy.
“Yeah,” you nod, “just hurry.”
He laughs, reaching out to gently pinch your chin between his thumb and forefinger. The kiss he places on your lips is as chaste as your first had been, and it leaves you tingling with potential, even as he stands and heads to the ensuite bathroom.
In his absence, you begin to take off your clothes, removing everything down to your bra and panties, and then, just for good measure, you settle onto your knees on the foot of his bed, trying to be as patient as possible.
You’re rewarded when Seungcheol appears in the doorway again, having stripped himself of his shirt. There’s a bottle of baby oil trapped between his teeth, and his hands are working on his belt and pants-
When he sees you sitting on the foot of his bed, like the best girl there ever was, he lets the baby bottle drop from his mouth, catching it easily in one hand- “look at you,” he breathes, scanning your form.
“Like what you see, daddy?” you tease, skin heating from the attention he gives you.
“Love it,” he tells you. “How good are your reflexes, darling?”
You open your mouth to respond, only to have him toss the bottle of oil at you.
Unlike him, you don’t catch it gracefully, the bottle almost slipping out of your hands- there’s a small fumble but your digits wrap around it-
Seungcheol laughs at you. “With butter fingers like that- should I be getting us a towel to put down?”
You hate that it’s a legitimate question.
And you doubly hate that the answer is a resounding yes, which you verbalize to him, annoyed that he’ll be leaving again-
But then you’re graced with a full view of his beautiful back when he turns to head into the bathroom again, and you decide to be a good, patient girl for just a few more moments.
Seungcheol returns, and you bite your tongue while you watch him set the towel down, but as soon as it’s settled, you find yourself saying - in something like a command - “on your stomach first,” you’re quick to adjust to your tone, “I wanna work your back out a little to start.”
“How could I say no to that?” Seungcheol grins, following through and laying flat on the towel.
You nearly drool while watching him adjust his arms, propping his head up with both hands under his chin. His biceps are bulging and your mouth is definitely beginning to water again, prompting you to lick your lips-
“Have you given many massages before?” he asks, as you straddle his hips, continuing to marvel at the shape of his perfect form-
“Erm- define many?”
He chuckles, and you flip the cap of the baby oil, allowing the liquid to pour into your palm. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“It can’t be that hard,” you tell him, bringing your hands to the muscled back that has you wet like the ocean every time you see it.
“Tell that to my chiropractor,” he says, a joke that makes you both laugh.
You begin to work away at his muscles, both hands smoothing up and down his back, focusing in on the shoulders you love so much-
“Feels good,” Seungcheol groans, releasing a deep sigh of relief that has your ego shooting through the roof.
“That’s good daddy,” you tell him, leaning over him and applying more of your body weight as pressure for your hands. “You deserve to relax.”
He chuckles slightly, and you realize you’re picking up on some of his diction. Hasn’t he been the one telling you what you deserve thus far?
All it takes is you being on top and you begin to emulate his mannerisms, the soft dom tendency towards praise.
You can tell he’s enjoying it, and you are too, your panties getting wetter with every second your hands are on his broad shoulders-
“Can you flip now?” you prompt, knowing it hasn’t been that long that you’ve been working on his back- but you miss his face, and you’re eager to get your hands on his chest-
With a grunt of affirmation, Seungcheol begins to turn, and you lift yourself off of him enough to allow the movement. Once he’s on his back, you settle down again, capturing his cock between your bodies as it strains against his pants.
“You like this position, huh?” he asks, smiling up at you with an expression that exudes adoration.
His hands find your thighs, rubbing up and down while you get more oil on your palms. “Not always,” you tell him, beginning to massage his chest, “top can be fun to start, in some cases, but- I really liked being under you the last time we were in your bed.”
“Oh yeah?”
You avoid his gaze, knowing your skin is heating from what you’d just admitted. “Uh huh.”
“You’re cute,” he breathes, rubbing circles on your thighs, “getting all shy while sitting on top of me like this.”
“I’m trying to focus,” you tell him, trailing your fingers down to his abdomen.
“You look a little dazed, darling,” he presses, “are you sure you don’t want me to take over?”
“I’ve hardly massaged you yet-” you go to argue, but Seungcheol is already making the move to sit up.
He grabs a fistful of your hair and tilts your head back the way he had last time- his breath is hot against your throat, and he trails his nose up under your jaw, bringing his lips to your ear. “What if I don’t care about the massage anymore?”
“Then-” you swallow thickly, pussy throbbing when his free hand unclasps your bra behind you, “then, okay.”
“Okay?” he chuckles. “My love, I don’t think ‘then, okay’ is a sentence.”
“Fuck me?”
“Not too sure that’s a sentence either, but, your wish is my command.”
It seems like the easiest thing in the world for him to discard your bra and flip you onto your back, lips finding your own, tearing your breath away.
Your legs tighten around his waist, and his oiled chest slides against yours, your newly freed nipples pebbling at the direct contact-
One of his hands, slides between your bodies, skimming over your breast and cupping it, squeezing. You release a moan of pleasure, hips bucking, pushing up towards him-
Your own hands slide over his slippery shoulders, and you mentally kick yourself for having lubed him up- there’s hardly anything to grasp onto, so you latch onto his hair instead, kissing him harder.
He releases your breast, hand slipping down and under the waistband of your panties. When his fingers find your core, they tease past your clit, and you can feel the silkiness of the baby oil on his digits, which glide into your wet hole as easily as ever.
“Cheol-” you moan desperately, wanting to push your hips up- to get closer, but he holds you down with his large body, lips moving to your neck.
You realize, as his expert fingers crook up and find your gspot, that the last time you’d fucked, he’d never fingered you. You’d gotten to experience his tongue and his cock, but the middle and ring fingers that explore your pussy have something like trained exactitude, hitting the spot that has your toes curling with deadly precision.
“Oh my god-” you whimper, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck, looking for an anchor while he begins to thrust his digits into you with enough force that your hips begin to rock-
The palm of his hand applies pressure to your clit, rubbing you through the rough manhandling that has you achingly close to an orgasm within no time-
“Gonna cum?” he prompts in your ear, hot breath making your skin tingle.
“Yes, daddy-” it’s the most you can do to hold onto him and clench your eyes shut, an intense feeling of euphoric pressure erupting between your legs-
“That’s it gorgeous, let it all out-” he groans, fingers unrelenting-
You can hear your pussy, squelching sinfully around his fingers- and you can feel wetness gushing between your thighs-
In the back of your mind, you realize you’re squirting, cumming completely undone on his hand, but you’re too lost in the feeling of it to care.
He finger fucks you to the point of overwhelm, until your whines and whimpers are hoarse and tears well in the corners of your shut eyes-
And then he’s pulling his hand out of your panties, and the soaked material is left to cling back to your sopping hole.
Your arms go slack, landing on the bed next to you, and Seungcheol pulls away from your body, making you moan desperately, eyes opening to watch him-
“I’m not going anywhere, angel,” he promises, pushing his own pants down before kicking them to the side, then he goes to tear your panties off, and you see, for the first time, how truly ruined they are. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone squirt this much,” he tells you, discarding the fabric so he can rejoin you on the bed, the both of you fully nude. “Did that feel good?”
“So good-” you whimper, hardly able to form sentences in your delirious, sex induced brain fog-
Seungcheol slots himself between your thighs again, cupping the side of your face, thumb brushing away the tear that’s escaped your eye. “Do you need a moment?”
“No!” you’re quick to protest, locking your legs around his hips. “Fuck me- daddy- please-”
You don’t think any cock has ever entered you as smoothly as his does, aided by the copious amount of wet arousal still dribbling out of your hole.
Seungcheol tucks his face against the crook of your neck, supporting himself above you with two hands buried into the pillow on either side of your head. His lips are feverish against your throat, and the groans he releases as he begins to fuck you make you as horny as ever.
“You feel so fucking good,” he moans, rutting into you with a pace and power that increases with every slap of skin on skin- “so perfect for me-”
“Daddy-” you whine, clawing at his back while he ravages your insides.
“So responsive-” his teeth graze past your neck and you shiver, whole body tingling with delight.
“Harder-” you moan.
“Harder?” he releases something like a laugh, and then you hear him swallow, adjusting his position so he can dig his elbows into the bed, hooking his forearms under your own shoulders, which props you up ever so slightly- enough to change the angle and allow him to follow through with your request.
You release a squeak at the feeling of being completely at his mercy, completely wrapped in Cheol while he’s wrapped in you- the perfect combination really.
The sounds escaping you aren’t something you can hold back, and each rough thrust has his cock hitting a spot deep inside of you, a spot that has you becoming a mewling, moaning, whimpering mess for him.
“Just like that-” you tell him desperately, grabbing at his hair, eager to hold onto something while you get fucked into oblivion-
“You close, gorgeous?” he asks, and all you can do is moan, which makes him chuckle, “yeah you are,” he breathes. “Squeezing daddy so fucking tight- you were made for this, weren’t you, angel?”
“Yes-”
“Made to be fucked-” he growls, rutting into you even harder-
You’re not sure where sweet, soft dom Seungcheol has gone, but you’re more than happy to be decimated by the man fucking into you like an animal, and his sinful praisings go straight to your pussy, which clenches around him even more.
“That’s it angel, that’s it-” he groans, “just a little more-” one of his hands moves to grab your thigh, hiking it higher on his waist-
He hits a spot that has you seeing stars, and you gasp loudly, crying out-
“Cum for me,” he instructs, and before your mind has even registered his words, your pussy is following through with the command, clamping down onto him while the biggest orgasm of your life slams into you like a freight train.
Seungcheol lets out delicious sounds of pleasure, gasping against your throat, fucking you through your orgasm while coating your insides with his own release-
You’re completely surrounded by him.
There’s nothing else, only you and Cheol… and perhaps the ruined towel below you, dragging against your back with each rough thrust.
His motions begin to slow, and he comes to a stop, collapsing some of his body weight down against you while you both struggle to catch your breath.
Neither of you say anything, too lost in the aftershocks of pleasure.
But with Cheol, you don’t need to say anything. You’re completely safe with him, completely content to rest in his arms, knowing there’s not a single place in the world you’d rather be.
11: Saturday
Waking up in Seungcheol’s bed, you immediately stretch in search of him- only to find the bed empty.
Sitting up, and wrapping the quilt around your nude body, you look around, blinking away residual grogginess.
The man who’d fucked you silly until the late hours of the morning is nowhere to be seen, and you can’t help the way annoyance floods through you. But you remind yourself that Seungcheol likes his schedules, and a quick check of the clock next to the bed shows you that it’s eleven am, so you suppose you can’t be mad at Cheol for not staying with you while you slept half the day away.
Getting out of bed, you’re surprised to find just how sore your body is.
Your thighs burn- and you suppose a round number five riding session may have not been the best idea last night.
You find the simple black sleeping shirt Seungcheol had given you before deciding to tear it off of you for round six, and you enjoy the way it dwarfs you.
Sometimes you still can’t believe how big and broad Cheol is-
Finding your overnight bag, you take out a fresh pair of panties, and decide to head off in search of Seungcheol in the simple shirt and underwear look. It’s doubtful you’ll be wearing it for much longer regardless.
It’s not hard to find your psychologist lover, after all, you simply have to follow the smell of food to the kitchen.
Your sugar daddy is standing at the stove, one hand holding a spatula while he cooks eggs, the other propping up a book that he’s quietly reading.
He’s so sexy and smart- and sexy… and smart.
You can’t help but tiptoe towards him, latching onto his back and pressing your cheek against the space between his shoulder blades, releasing a groan of pleasure to finally be connected to him again.
“Morning, angel,” Seungcheol greets you, setting his book down before adjusting you, tugging you so you’re in front of him and he can meet your eyes. “Did you sleep well?”
“Better than ever,” you beam at him, leaning up to press a chaste kiss to his lips. “And you?”
“Never better,” he returns your smile, and your heart practically melts. “Hungry?”
“Definitely- are you my master chef today?”
He laughs. “I’m not sure I’m that good, cooking is a hobby I’ve only truly picked up in recent years.”
“Right,” you say, turning in his arms to look down at the pan in front of you. “Very hard ingredient, eggs.”
Seungcheol releases a cross between a chuckle and a sigh behind you, poking at your ribcage. “I can make more than eggs. I just figured, I don’t really know what you like when it comes to food, so I’d make something safe and healthy. Besides, I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up.”
“So this is just for you, is that what you’re saying?” you tease him some more, enjoying the domesticity of this- it’s as if you’ve done this a hundred times before, or at least, you have the peace that comes with familiarity.
“If I had known you were such a brat-” he begins, but you cut him off with a squeal and turn to face him again, insisting “I’m not a brat!”
He simply looks at you with a smile.
“You’re being mean to me,” you pout, cupping the back of his neck and getting closer to him.
Seungcheol scoffs, shaking his head slightly. He’s quick to change the subject. “Eggs are done, are you going to come sit with me at the table?”
With a sigh, you release the psychologist, allowing him to move the eggs to a plate- and when you turn to head to the table, you see a tray of fresh fruit and other breakfast items.
“There’s orange juice in the fridge, water, or I can make you some coffee,” Seungcheol says, following you to the table where you both take your seats.
“I’m okay for now,” you tell him, grabbing a particularly tasty-looking piece of fruit to gnaw on. “Thanks, daddy.”
Seungcheol smiles, looking down at the healthy fruit options. “You know,” he says, moving a few pieces of cantaloupe and honeydew to his plate, “I’ve been wondering about you and your daddy kink.”
“Hmm?”
“Just that- we’ve never discussed it, not explicitly- I guess, being a sugar daddy, the term is in the name, but… you took to it very easily,” he explains.
“Are you suggesting I have inherent daddy issues?”
“Not suggesting, merely… wondering.”
“How about this,” you set your fruit down, “I’ll talk about my daddy issues when you tell me why you think you’d be a bad father.”
Seungcheol looks at you quizzically.
“I know you say it’s about your work and not having enough time, but- you’re settled in your career and reputation. You have this big house, a chauffeur, a group of smart psychologist friends who are popping out babies right now- and I saw the way you were with baby Yumi. looking at all of that- the only reason I can think of for why you’d be… adverse to babies, is that you have some personal reasons to think you’d be bad at it.”
The man across from you stays quiet, leaning back in his chair, but a smile works its way across his face. Then, he sighs, “touche.”
“So I guess neither of us will be talking about our daddy issues at the breakfast table,” you conclude, picking at your fruit again.
“How did I ever find a girl like you on a dating site?” Seungcheol says. “So pretty, and smart-”
“How did I ever find you on a dating site?” you retort, “so sexy, and smart-”
“Maybe finding each other was destiny.”
“Do you believe in that sort of thing?” you ask, cocking your head to the side. “Many men of science that I’ve heard of tend to lean towards atheism.”
“Maybe I used to, but then- let’s just say, I found an angel, and my world’s been flipped upside down ever since.”
Your heart leaps in your chest, and you avert your gaze, looking down at your fruit. “You’re too sweet to me.”
“As I’ve told you before, angel,” Seungcheol reaches his hand across the table, placing it over your own, “you deserve it.”
☀️ mlist + an. thank you for reading! this fic was never supposed to be this long- i don't know what came over me- it was very self-indulgent :) hope you liked it!
🍭 support me by. sending a tip here or here - or become a patron to access monthly bonus content and extensions for fics like this one :) find the Patreon teaser below!
🔮 preview. You can’t believe how easy it is for Seungcheol to get you quaking for him- but you suppose, in some sense, you’re always quaking for your sugar daddy, who’d turned the entire trajectory of your life around the moment you’d met.
cw/ tw. oral (f receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, daddy/breeding kink, bickering like an old married couple, praise, semi-bondage, size kink, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, etc...
👹 rating. 18+ explicit I wc. 2.3k I teaser wc. 370
🌙 staring. seungcheol x afab!Reader
bonus teaser
“Are you checking your book sales again?” you groan, leaning over the back of the sunlounger chair to look over Seungcheol’s shoulders, your hands smoothing down his bare chest-
“No,” your psychologist lover says, closing his laptop and setting it on the side table next to him.
“Liar,” you grin, moving around the front of his chair so he can see you and the red bikini adorning your body- one of many sets you’ve accumulated over the two and a half years you’ve been dating Seungcheol.
You have no actual intent of going into the private pool behind you.
Seungcheol’s eyes eat you up, and the smile of appreciation that works its way onto his lips is as bright and full of affection as it’s always been. “Look at you, angel. I’ll never get tired of seeing you in red.”
“Ass kisser,” you tease, watching him stand up from the poolside chair. “I thought we agreed no work on our honeymoon.”
“It’s true that I promised that- but… checking sales on my new book isn’t work, it’s… checking sales on my new book, and besides, you were asleep,” your husband grins, hands finding your waist and tugging you to his chest. “What if you pretend you never saw me on my laptop.”
You roll your eyes. He’s gotten cheekier the longer you’ve been together, and this playful side of your relationship isn’t something you’d trade for the entire world.
“You always get up to naughty things while I’m sleeping,” you tease, playing the part of an upset wife.
“Come on,” Seungcheol prompts, leaning down to kiss you, “say you love me.”
“I’ll say I love you when you fulfill your other promise.”
“You know, we’re what, three days into this vacation?” Seungcheol pulls you closer. “Who’s to say I haven’t already pumped a baby into you?”
“Me,” you grin, hooking your fingers in his swim trunks. “I don’t feel full at all right now, in any way, shape, or form.”
“Well then, let’s see what I can do about filling you up sufficiently,” he smiles, leaning down to kiss you one last time before throwing you over his shoulder and taking you back into your private vacation villa..
God, you fucking love this man.
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The problem with judging people for their sins is that the internet makes it exceedingly easy to invent sins. In February, Buzzfeed News reported on a man filmed by a passing TikTokker, who then uploaded the footage with text suggesting he’d lied to her to get out of a date. That was false—he’d never met her—but it didn’t stop people from ridiculing him as the video racked up over a million views.
Similarly, last year, an Australian woman objected to being made the star of a stunt in which a TikTokker asked her to hold a bouquet, strolled off, and then congratulated himself on performing a random act of kindness. Sixty million hits later, his viewers were praising him for brightening the day of a woman they judged to be old, lonely, and sad. But she objected to that characterization and declared the whole affair “dehumanizing.” She hadn’t asked to have her day interrupted, let alone be thrust into a global spotlight.
And then there are those incapable of even grasping the situation. In 2022, a TikTok channel was called out for surreptitiously filming the homeless with drones. Loved ones with dementia are put on TikTok to be infantilized or have their worst moments gawked at. Parents transform their children into viral stars. Sometimes, those children grow up and call them out for warping their youth.
When people tell us it was harrowing and wrong to be unwillingly cast into the spotlight, we nod and agree. But those responsible typically offer only half-hearted apologies or remain unrepentant, while their millions of views discourage reflection. Often, moral scolding is implicit in the video and explicit in the comments: It is wrong to be homeless. It is gross to be ill. It is pathetic to be unhappy.
To be sure, crass and hateful public figures are worthy of ridicule. And we’ve been using the internet to judge strangers for as long as we’ve had the internet. But the common trait shared by much of the most obnoxious content today is that someone chose to elevate a stranger for no reason beyond their own gratification, attracting attention at a scale unimaginable in the days of relics like Hot or Not and People of Wal-Mart.
At best, these are misguided attempts to juice the poster’s social media presence. At worst, they are pointless cruelty. That cruelty can be addictive, but we can and must resist the urge to gawk at strangers against their will. It should, in fact, be considered rude, insulting, and wrong to have uploaded a stranger against their will. We would not go out into the streets and stir up a mob against a random person. Why are we so comfortable with doing it online?
Much of what we post online is innocent and will remain so. The average Facebook user has 338 friends, while the average number of Instagram followers, according to one estimate, is just 150. You likely use these platforms to follow celebrities and brands, and to interact with friends and family. These are, for most users, insular communities. Vacation photos with friends or a family portrait at Christmas are unlikely to attract trolls and creeps, and even if they do, they are clearly posted in good faith.
But some platforms, like TikTok and Twitter, are more exposed to the vagaries and cruelties of the wider world. Anything you post on them can wind up in the feed of people who don't follow you. Therefore, anyone can become the day’s punching bag. Does your relative really understand what could happen if you put your interaction with them on TikTok?
Maybe you know better than to post Grandpa on Twitter without thinking it through. We know whether our friends and family like attention and whether they understand social media ecosystems, and with this knowledge we are capable of making informed decisions as to whether and on what platforms we should post them. We do not have the same knowledge of strangers. That can be a reason to not post them, but it can also be an excuse to post them without thinking.
If it came out that an influencer uploaded an interaction with a stranger to a private Facebook page or Discord server solely so their closest friends and family could pick them apart, it would rightly be considered misanthropic. And yet uploading a stranger so millions can mock and over-analyze them is just the business of content. That business needs to change.
It’s exceedingly unlikely we’ll ever eliminate jackassery from the internet, but a social media mishap involving a friend or family member can be resolved with communication.
It is harder for a complete stranger to succeed in that endeavor, especially when “Look at this weirdo I found, please gape at them” is the text or subtext of so many videos and posts by accounts that thrive on content starring the unwilling. Such content must become anathema. Particular thought must be taken before posting an interaction with a stranger, and the consent of a stranger to be posted at all is necessary to retain an internet that is even remotely civil. If someone does post a stranger without their consent, they should be shunned, not rewarded with the attention they crave.
The vast majority of disputes with unruly neighbors are solved by talking to them. Ideally, the law only gets involved when lines of communication break down. The same can be true of digital disputes.
We have privacy laws. If I were to post your name, address, and phone number, you would have legal recourse. And yet the same is not true for your image. Today, at least, you surrender your right to privacy by stepping into public. But outdated privacy laws are catching up to the abuses of government and tech, and the issues raised by social media virality could be next.
Still, a blanket law against posting strangers without their consent would be draconian and unworkable. There are too many variables, too many circumstances, and simply too many cases. However, whole generations who have been online since birth—sometimes unwillingly—could grow up to be more sensitive to the downsides of posting without permission, prompting a normative shift.
More specific laws are already evolving to handle some scenarios raised by nonconsensual virality, specifically as it applies to children. Irina Raicu of Santa Clara University’s Internet Ethics Program points out that a recent French law entitles child influencers to demand that platforms scrub all trace of them once they turn 16. The YouTube career their parents create for them—or force on them—need not be what defines them as adults. The United States is considering a similar law; a woman who testified to a House committee said the details of her first period were turned into content.
Another law being considered in France would make parents responsible for their children’s privacy rights. Le Monde cites, as an example of fame-seeking behavior that France is hoping to discourage, TikTokkers scaring their children by pretending to call the police on them, and an Instagrammer who smeared chocolate on her 4-year-old and convinced them they were covered in feces. We will eventually wonder how parents were able to get away with this at all.
So those who cannot consent are starting to be protected. But what about those who could consent, but don’t? And what if, as some unwillingly viral subjects have found, reaching out and asking for posts to be removed is met with silence or rejection?
In reality we already practice social media consent; it is not unusual to ask a friend if they’re alright with having a picture posted to Instagram, even though the face they make as they try to cram an unusually large sandwich into their mouth is not a flattering one. And yet we continually fail to extend this courtesy to strangers, either because we think nothing of it or because it is our job to go viral at all costs.
Some of this, as Raicu points out, can be blamed on the platforms we use, which encourage hair triggers. “There are ways in which the design choices behind many websites make it harder for all of us to think about consent,” Raicu wrote in an email. She points to the sheer ease of posting and the fact that norms around social media consent have not solidified. But she notes that platforms could “introduce some friction” in the form of, essentially, reminders that other people are human before you hit Post.
Future platforms could work to curtail shaming, either out of moral compulsion or legal necessity. Much as you can report harassment to social media platforms, posts that have elevated you to infamy against your will should be fair targets.
Lines have been drawn before. YouTube banned dangerous pranks and challenges after people were hurt and complaints mounted. TikTok is trying to tweak its algorithm in response to growing concerns that young users are awash in content encouraging suicide and incel ideology. Content made from those unable or unwilling to consent is a broad category that cannot be wiped out with algorithmic tweaks, but the damage is still happening, and we have the power to collectively declare that some forms of content are unacceptable and must no longer be tolerated.
Perhaps, given the increasing universality of social media usage—83 percent of Gen Z uses TikTok—platform-embedded tools could establish consent. Before posting a video of someone, an influencer could ask their username and send them a simple, stock contract granting them permission to post. Again, this need not apply to every random photo of friends. It could be optional, or it might apply only when an account reaches a certain threshold of followers. But a lack of permission could give a user cause when they cite unwanted virality and negative attention when asking for a post to be removed.
But most of the work will fall to people. It's difficult enough to remember that the man being a bit rude in the grocery store line is a fallible human being with hopes and dreams; it can be almost impossible to remind yourself of that when viewing a contextless clip of someone halfway across the hemisphere. The internet is capable of connecting us to tremendous numbers of people, even as it makes us forget that they are human like us.
An influencer comfortable with filming themselves for thousands of viewers should be comfortable with approaching a stranger and saying, “Would you mind appearing in a video I’m making? I’m going to post it on this platform, and I have this many followers. Take a minute to check me out.” Some already do, and surely there are people who would be happy to receive a free bouquet in exchange for appearing in a TikTokker’s silly stunt. But a no should be taken as a no, just as it should in any other scenario involving consent.
It’s all too easy to skip this step today. People who speak out when they feel harmed by what an influencer did with their image receive only a tiny fraction of the attention that the original posts featuring them got. But when an influencer is repeatedly called out for exploiting strangers—or when their exploitation is obvious, such as when they prey on the homeless—they should be frozen out of the social media ecosystem, not rewarded with attention and profit.
In the future, how will we be able to see such casual cruelty as anything but unethical? Maybe stories of regret are a sign of what’s to come. Brianna Wu, one of the victims of GamerGate, says she has fielded over 100 apologies, often from people who were at their lowest and saw her as an easy outlet for their emotions. But we generally don’t take our frustrations out on people on the street; understanding that people deserve to be protected from unsolicited online fame and malice is the next logical step.
We no longer parade people through villages on a cart or lock them in pillories in the town square to shame them, as was done in centuries past. We did not stop enforcing laws and norms, but we recognized that humiliation and ostracization are harsh, counterproductive tools. Eventually, we will make that realization about the strangers we parade across the internet.
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DIVINE FEMININE | cl16
SOCIAL MEDIA!AU
charles leclerc x fem!reader
side note: i purposefully left out any tweets because this focuses more on the aesthetics
side note pt.2: thank you @cl16version for the photo inspirations!
♡ liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc and 115,923 others
tagged: yourusername
viviennewestwood yourusername wears a custom wedding gown created just for her beautiful wedding to Formula One driver charles_leclerc in the South of France last weekend.
"When I was younger I always liked to imagine what my future wedding dress would look like. As soon as I met Vivienne at a fashion show, I knew she had to be part of it. I feel very honoured to have worked with her and other amazing designers on my look. It felt like a dream come true."
~ Y/N Leclerc
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user1 imagine having THE vivienne westwood custom design your wedding dress
⤷ user2 thank god charles has money because otherwise that dream would've stayed a dream
yourusername still baffled by all the amazing looks you created for me to wear throughout the night! what an honour!
comment liked by viviennewestwood
user3 the way they wrote 'Y/N Leclerc' has me in tears (in an emotional way)
⤷ user4 i still can't get over the fact they truly married. i'm so happy for them
user5 Y/N LOOKS SO STUNNING
⤷ user6 the most beautiful bride
♡ liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, carlossainz55 and 312,845 others
tagged: yourusername, charles_leclerc
daniel3.jpg unpaid, personal photographer
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user7 i want a whole documentary about what happened at this wedding
⤷ user8 it looks so much fun i'm so envious of all the guests that attended
⤷ user9 i know everyone who had to cancel is fighting the air right now
yourusername the picture of charles is my new favourite
⤷ daniel3.jpg same, same
user10 i love how with every slide the drunkeness scale rapidly increases
⤷ user11 as it should
charles_leclerc yes, we definitely enjoyed ourselves
⤷ daniel3.jpg the champagne was endless
user12 it's so funny that daniel is the first one to post about the wedding. he is really their number one fan
⤷ user13 i mean he was the one to introduce y/n to charles
⤷ user14 it's like he's watching his two babies getting married
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yourusername to love & to cherish
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user15 i love how she just has multiple wedding dresses
⤷ user16 she's that kind of indecisive
charles_leclerc mon seul et unique amour (my one and only love)
⤷ yourusername i love it when you speak french
danielricciardo i want nieces and nephews in an instant
⤷ yourusername who said you'd be their uncle
⤷ danielricciardo that's not even a question
carlossainz55 felicidades
⤷ yourusername thank you
user17 i just know nicola peltz is crying in her sleep right now
⤷ user18 nicola really thought she ate until y/n stepped up
lilymhe i still have tears in my eyes from how beautiful it was
⤷ yourusername wouldn't have been as beautiful as it was without such an organised maid of honour
⤷ lilymhe i was so scared something would go wrong
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charles_leclerc mon tout (my everything)
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user19 you know they're rich because not only did y/n have multiple custom made wedding gowns, but charles also had multiple suits
⤷ user20 did you expect anything less from them?
yourusername i love you so incredibly much
⤷ charles_leclerc i'm the luckiest man alive
user21 this is my royal wedding
⤷ user22 my met gala
scuderiaferrari congratulazioni! così felice per te! (congratulations! so happy for you!)
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arthur_leclerc i still can't believe my big brother is finally married
⤷ charles_leclerc did you not believe in my charm?
⤷ arthur_leclerc honestly, no
⤷ yourusername it was actually my charm that got you wrapped around my fingers
♡ liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, pierregasly and 472,065 others
lando.jpg "the wedding of the decade"
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user23 why did it never occur to me that there'd be LITERAL CELEBRETIES attending their wedding
⤷ user24 yeah like you're telling me timmy, billie, zoe, bella and kendall were there? a fever dream, if you'd ask me
⤷ user25 this just makes me question who else was there
user26 this is just so fucking random hahahaha
yourusername i love how these are all pictures i have never seen before! next time i'll hire you and daniel professionally
⤷ charles_leclerc what do you mean "next time"
⤷ user27 Y/N HAHAHAHAHA
user28 the more pictures i'm seeing of this wedding, the more the desire comes for me to get married as well
⤷ user29 literally never wanted to get married until now
#charles leclerc#charles leclerc imagine#charles leclerc imagines#charles leclerc x reader#charles leclerc x you#charles leclerc x y/n#charles leclerc fluff#charles leclerc fanfiction#f1 instagram au#f1 social media au#f1 smau#f1 imagine#f1 imagines#f1 x you#f1 x reader#f1 x y/n#f1 fluff#f1 fanfiction#f1 fanfic
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Savage Love Part Eleven
Matt Sturniolo x reader Mafia AU
masterlist
“He has what?” Emma says on the other end of the phone call. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not!” I tell her. “And now his brothers are here and I can’t leave!”
“I told you being with him seriously was a bad idea.”
I sigh. “I know, I know. But he… he seemed so nice. He didn’t seem like he-“
“I told you he was a Mafia leader, y/n.”
I look at the door of Matt’s bedroom to make sure his brothers aren’t listening in on me.
“I saw the photos and I closed the door. His brothers came home and I can’t go in and look again to investigate.”
“You shouldn’t have quit the article, this is big.”
“Emma!” I whisper shout into the phone. “I have more important things than that right now!”
“Well how do you believe me that he’s bad news?”
“Yes, okay, yes.”
“Good. Now, you need out of there.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the last hour?!” I ask in a loud whisper.
“His brothers are where in the house?” Emma asks.
“Downstairs somewhere.”
“Do you think you could climb out the window?”
I pause. “What?”
“Climb out the window. Do you think you can?”
“Give me a moment.” I mumble as I look over to the window. I’m only on the second floor but the walls are so high that it seems more like the third or fourth. “I don’t think I can swing that.”
“Something that doesn’t make sense to me though.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Why would he leave the key where you would find it? It’s like he wanted you to find it. Like he wanted you to see-“
“Yeah that’s been bugging me too.” I sit down in the bed and scratch the back in my neck.
“Do you think you can look in there again? Without getting caught by Huwey and Luwey?”
“Maybe…” I get up and go back to Matt’s office. I pick up the key and then creep to the hallway.
“Go to face time.” Emma says and I switch the call to face time. Emma’s face appears on my screen and I shush her to make sure she doesn’t speak and get me caught.
I look down the hallway and down the stairs. Chris and Nick are downstairs doing whatever, which gives me the chance to look back in the room.
I change the camera from front to back to show Emma the room. I unlock the door and open it slowly, flicking on the light before slowly closing the door behind me to make sure Chris and Nick don’t catch me.
“Oh my god.” Emma says.
The room is filled wall to wall with photos of my ex boyfriend, my old boss, and basically any person that’s ever wronged me in my life. A big red X over my ex boyfriend’s face.
“Does the X mean…” Emma says.
“I don’t know…” I whisper.
“I’m gonna check to see if anyone’s heard from him.”
“Emma…”
“I’m screen recording. Do a full pan of the room.” She says.
I slowly move my phone camera around the room to get every part recorded.
“Good, now get out of there!” Emma whisper shouts and I shut off the light, and creep out of the room. I lock the door behind me and quickly walk to Matt’s office to put the key back where I found it under the desk.
“Get out of there, girl!” Emma says and I quickly make my way to the window.
“How do I get out?” I whisper to her.
“You’ve seen movies, tie the bedsheets together and climb out!”
I nod and run to the bed, pulling off the sheets and starting to tie the corners together.
“God, this is so difficult with silk sheets!” I complain as I tie the corners together. I double tie them just to make sure they down slip out of their hold.
I open the window and throw the sheets out, the tie the end to the bedpost. I slowly climb out the window with my phone in my back pocket. I scale down the wall slowly and carefully. The sheets don’t make it to the grass but make it just far enough to where it wouldn’t hurt to jump. I slip to the ground and fall on my back.
I take a second to catch my breath before getting up and starting to run to the driveway. I didn’t think this far ahead. He lives in a mansion miles away from anything. I don’t have any of the keys to his cars and even if I did he’d find me.
I sneak around to the front and make sure to hide away from view of Matt’s brothers. I rush to the driveway and start running as fast as I can.
I start to loose my breath after running for a long time. It felt like hours even though it was only a few minutes. God I wish I didn’t skip my gym classes in high school.
The sun was going down when I had called Emma a little over an hour ago, and now it’s almost fully dark out.
Before I could reach the main road, a car comes driving up the driveway. I gasp and step back. It’s Matt, I know it.
The car stops right in front of me and Matt steps out.
“Hey, doll, what are you doing out here?” He asks as he walks over to me. I step back to get away from him and he stops, looking at me confused. “What’s wrong, baby?” He asks.
“I… I saw it.” I say softly.
“Saw what?” He asks me.
“The room. The room with… with the photos, with the-“
“Dollface…” Matt steps closer to me and I step backwards to keep him at a distance.
“You left the key where I could find it, you wanted me to find it, you wanted me to know.” My voice tremors as my body begins to shake.
“Yes, you’re right, but I only wanted you to know I’m protecting you from them.” Matt steps closer to me again and I step backwards again as well.
“What did the X over Bennetts picture mean?” My voice cracks as I ask.
Matt stays silent. He sighs and then says “Get in the car babygirl.”
“Is he okay?” I ask.
“Just get in the car.”
“Did you kill him?”
Matt sighs again. “After what he did to you, he’s lucky all I did was kill him.”
I stand in shock in front of Matt. I’m unable to move as he steps closer to me. “It’s alright, baby, I’ve got you.” He says as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to his car.
My heart races as I’m unable to move by myself from the shock. Matt opens his car door and sets me in the passenger seat. He goes to the driver seat and starts the car back up.
After a bit of silence I say “What did you do to him?” In a whisper.
Matt sighs. “I did it for you, babygirl.”
“Tell me what you did to him.”
“Y/n-“
“I will jump out of this car if you don’t tell me.” I threaten.
Matt chuckles. “I’m going 20, you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”
“Matt, tell me what you did to Bennett!”
Matt groans and shakes his head. “If I tell you, you have to promise you won’t leave me.”
“Leave you?”
“I don’t want you to think of me any differently.”
“You killed him! You killed him and you don’t want me to leave you? To think of you differently? You don’t think I will?”
“I did it for you!” He shouts back. Matt’s hands grip the steer wheel tighter. He takes a deep breath. “You think you know him but you don’t. When I first saw you, first fell for you, after our first time together, before that even. When I left that hotel room weeks ago for the first time I knew I wanted you. So I looked you up. I looked up everything I could find about you. I saw you dated him, Bennett Cassidy. I read about what he did to you, I saw the messages he screenshotted and sent to his friends acting like you were some toy instead of a human being.”Matt says calmly.
“Matt…”
“You don’t know who he is.”
“He was my high school boyfriend.”
“Oh he is so much worse than that. You have no idea darling.”
“What did you do to him?” I shout.
“Do you want the fucking details?” He snaps through his teeth.
I flinch and stare at him in shock.
“I’m- I’m sorry princess.” He says and puts his hand on my knee. I move my knee away from him and he frowns, putting his hand back in the wheel.
“Matt I want to go home.” I say calmly.
“You can’t.”
“I don’t want to be here.”
“Is it too uncomfortable? I can get us a cozy cabin or-“
“I don’t want to be with you.”
Matt stops the car and looks at me. “You can’t do that.”
“Matt you killed him.”
“I did it for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that, I’d never ask for anything like that!” Tears form in my eyes.
“Y/n you can’t leave me.”
“Get away from me-“ I open the car door.
Matt opens his door and runs after me, taking my arm. “Don’t go, please don’t go.”
“Let go of me.” I try to pull away from him.
“Y/n please, don’t make me do this!” He begs and my breath hitches.
“Do what? What are you going to do to me?” I try to pull away from him again.
“I’m sorry, darling.” He says. He pinches my neck and everything goes black.
Tags: @stargirlsturniololover @sturniolobessed @eyelessdemon00 @sturnioloenthusiast @sturniolopookie @urmommysbathroom @qwertytit @whatever1021 @chrisfavoritepepsi @stramboli4life @sturniolosreads @timmyscomputer @iloveneilperry @chrisloyalgf @bernardenjoyer @mbbsgf @xxsadlovexx @nickmillersn1gf
#chris sturniolo#christopher sturniolo#matt sturniolo#nick sturniolo#sturniolo triplets#sturniolo x reader#chris x reader#sturniolo fanfic#chris sturniolo x reader#sturniolo smut#matt imagine#matt sturniolo blurb#matt sturniolo fic#matt sturniolo edit#matt sturniolo imagine#matt sturniolo smut#matt sturniolo x reader#matthew sturniolo#matt x reader#nick sturniolo x reader#nick x reader#chris sturniolo fluff#chris sturniolo fanfic#christopher sturniolo x reader#chris sturniolo smut#chris sturniolo x fem reader#chris sturniolo imagine#chris sturniolo x you#sturniolo#chris sturniolo oneshot
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the warmest bed i've ever known
'one look and they'll know' collection masterlist
See my full list of works here!
Placement: dating era; a few days after 'when the feeling sinks in'
Summary: Tom has convinced you to go back to London with him for a few weeks, and a photo of you two out and about together has opinions firing left and right.
Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader
Word Count: 4k
Warnings (spoilers ahead): language; big hater behavior towards Reader; attempted breakup; angst; brief mentions of past bullying [let me know if i missed anything!]
Things to be aware of: Tomathy fully in his comforting precious bf era
Numb.
That was the only word that came to mind right now to describe what you felt, staring at your screen with all the hateful vile words that people who didn't even know you were flinging your way. And all because of the man you were dating. And how much you looked like a downgrade compared to his ex.
Then again it really shouldn't have surprised you, considering the turn your life had taken in the last few months. Hell, the last few days. There was really no other way for these nameless faceless spineless people to react when the man you'd started dating was none other than Tom Hiddleston.
And the figuratively ridiculously large shoes you had to fill considering the rising power of said ex…was Taylor Swift's.
You shouldn't have gone online. Checked Twitter. Checked anything, really. They rarely if ever had anything good to say, it was a special kind of stupid and naive for you to think that someway somehow you and your relationship were going to be the exception to the vitriolic rule.
Now here you were, screechy voices filling your mind, spitting out the words that your eyes scanned when you opened the cesspool of a sight.
Nothing special
Unremarkable
Fucking stab my eyes out with a rusty fork ugly
To be completely fair, you'd seen worse when you were still in school, every day inundated with the mocking words that sociopaths with hormones on overdrive wielded recklessly like a goddamn balisong without care that the person on the receiving end was actually a person. And if that was the shitshow you experienced from people brave enough to sign those sentiments with their name and say it to your face with chests fully puffed out, then the bravery of these people when they were all snuggled up under the protective cover of anonymity really shouldn't have shocked you.
Finding out who they were behind the screen and dealing out retribution on your own terms would have been a simple enough task. After all, you'd done it before, and even with the current advancements in technology and the tighter security protocols centered around protecting user data, you still managed to keep a few tricks in your bag that you could whip out if the need ever arose.
There was just one thing that stopped you from doing just that. A part of you agreed with the vicious comments. It was easy enough to ignore when people in school were just making hateful pages about how you sucked and how no one would ever genuinely like you. Or when they made pages pretending to be you so that they could dole out their paltry attempts at trying to ruin what little reputation you had at the time.
When you dealt with them on that comparatively smaller scale, it became easy to numb yourself to their words, drown them out until they were just white noise in the background, keeping you focused on the path you laid out for yourself rather than distracting you. It gave you a drive to work harder and better so that you could get as far away from them as possible.
On this scale, the background noise was so strong, so loud and overwhelming that every step you took to fight it seemed to take every ounce of your strength. It felt like there was no way out. You couldn't just hunker down and work hard so that you could get away from it all this time. And you couldn't exactly ignore them, either.
How could you? When they were voicing with pinpoint accuracy every insecurity that plagued you ever since you agreed to be his girlfriend a few days ago. Ever since your first night with him months ago.
So is this some sort of Make-A-Wish thing? That's it, right? She's on her last few months and she wanted to live them in delusion?
Fifty bucks says Tom's active on Raya right now. Quick someone send me an invite link I wanna shoot my shot. Tommy don't worry baby I'll save you from whatever the fuck mistake you got yourself into.
How the fuck do you go from Taylor Swift to that?
The most prevalent remarks in the last few hours had to do with a sighting of you sitting on a park bench, working on creating a wardrobe piece for an upcoming show that, if all went well, would start filming in a few years. The book author and the prospective showrunner got in contact with you after a glowing recommendation from Taika, and they talked about struggling to find the perfect scarf that would serve as one of the series' focal points.
After a few discussions and so many skeins of yarn that there was now an oversized tote bag in your hotel room overflowing with various shades of dark teal and peacock blue, you started crocheting a sample size of the pattern to show the author later on in the afternoon before you went to meet Tom for dinner. And that was how you were spotted this morning, sitting quietly on the bench, eyes on your project while your boyfriend was taking Bobby for a walk.
And for some reason the internet was up in arms over that,
Are you really fucking telling me this boring ass bitch that's giving old lady crocheting a goddamn scarf is fucking riding the God of Mischief every day? Nuh uh nope I don't believe that. Our Tommy deserves someone fun, and actually fucking pays attention to him and not a ball of yarn. Our baby deserves so much better than this.
You stared at the desk in front of you, your sample scarf to the left, and your laptop at the center, the screen now black from inactivity. You couldn't bother to move to check the time; your reminder would ring when your call would start. All you could bring yourself to do was remain exactly as you were, knees drawn to your chest with your arms around your legs, shaking and doing your damnedest not to break out into sobs over the knowledge of what you were about to do as soon as the door opened.
It was a good run, you told yourself. More than I deserved.
The sound of the front door opening jolted you back to reality, the voices finally dying down somewhat. Unfortunately, hearing Tom's voice started the voices right back up again.
"Y/N, darling, have you finished with your call? I was hoping we could go out tonight for dinner and--" His words stopped abruptly once he got to his study, seeing you in the position you'd been in for the last few hours, and immediately rushed to your side, crouching in front of you and taking your hands in his. "What's wrong, goddess?"
"I uhh…I have to go back to Los Angeles. I'm gonna see if I can make the next flight back." You didn't dare meet his eyes, still trying to hold back any tears.
He let out a breath, sounding almost relieved before he pressed a kiss to your hands. "That shouldn't be much of a problem, I can pack a bag and we can be on the next flight out--"
"No," you cut him off, wincing at your tone. "I'm going alone. There's no need for you to go with me, I'm sure you have some other things to do here. Better things."
There was a slight tremor in his hand as he cupped your face, gently turning your head to look at him. He took a shuddering breath seeing the tears swimming in your eyes. "What's happening right now, sweetheart? Please. I don't understand what could have brought this on, we had a lovely morning--"
"I thought I could do this," you choked out, finding it difficult to form coherent words without starting to blubber. "I thought I could drown the voices out, not let them get to me but…they're too loud. They're ruthless and vile and they have megaphones and they're right." You shook your head to turn away from him, burying your face between your knees, the all too familiar feeling of shame flooding your system, shrouding over you like an overly weighted blanket. "I'm not strong enough to do this with you. And you deserve someone better than me."
You took your laptop off of Standby, your screen illuminating and showing him the harsh words that had been haunting you since you stupidly decided to check the internet just minutes after he left the house. He began to visibly tense as his eyes scanned the pages seeing all the hateful things literal strangers had to say about your relationship.
"Look we gave it a shot," you tried to tell him, making a motion to get out of the chair which made him put his hands on the armrests, effectively keeping you in place. "But I think it's time to call it. I'm not good for you, and you deserve someone--"
"No." His tone was low and resolute, hands staying firmly on the chair, refusing to let you go anywhere. From a certain perspective, it was a smart enough move, considering that if he let you go right now, you'd probably sprint out the door in the name of doing what you thought would be best for him. Even if it meant ripping your own heart out in the process. "This can't be over already, we've only just begun. The time I've had with you has been extraordinary and I know that if we keep going, it'll get even better. You've made me so happy and--"
"You'll find someone that makes you happier," you dumbly shot back, the sentiment hitting you so hard that the tears finally began to fall. Even the thought of him potentially moving on so quickly after this already had you ready to sob. "Someone stronger. Someone that can handle all of this or hell someone they'll actually like--"
"Those people don't care for my happiness," he said in a rush, tears filling his eyes as well. "No matter what I do, there's always going to be someone hateful that has something to say, and they'll always think they're right. It's so clear that they don't give a damn about what actually makes me happy because if they did, they wouldn't be saying these disgusting lies about you, trying to get into your head."
There was a desperation in his tone that tore at your heart; no part of you wanted to do this. But seeing every single insecurity that you'd had ever since you said yes to being his girlfriend, yes to going to London with him for a few weeks, and generally just yes to spending the next few however months of your life with him, all laid out in print echoed by so many others? You knew he deserved better than this, better than someone that would ultimately have to be hidden away so that these people would stop coming for his throat for his 'poor choices'.
And when you knew that what would be best for the man you ached to give your heart to was to actually tuck your heart away and run, how selfish would it be for you to do the opposite?
The feel of his hands framing your face brought you back to your thoughts, the frantic pleading look on his face robbing you of your breath. "Do you want to leave, Y/N?" You wanted to scream No of course I don't, I want to stay with you. But you found yourself unable to form words. All you could do was shake your head as more tears fell from your eyes.
He pressed his lips to yours, pulling you into his arms the second you crossed your hands behind his neck and lifting you out of your seat. He didn't break the kiss until he'd carried you to his bedroom, setting you down on the edge of the bed. Then he pressed a tender kiss to your forehead before sinking to his knees in front of you, taking your hands in his.
"Then don't leave. Stay with me. We'll stay in and stay away from prying eyes so nobody gets to say anything about you, we'll--"
"You shouldn't have to make adjustments in your life for the sake of making me comfortable," you argued. "You should be with someone that can face all of this, not cower in a corner licking her wounds needing to be protected if she so much as gets seen stepping out of your house like some tiny helpless baby animal. You deserve to be with someone you can share everything with, without the worry of people shooting you down just because I'm not pretty enough or tall enough for them. You can have anything and everything you want with a snap of your fingers, I'm sure it won't be that hard to find someone that--"
Tom stopped you from letting out another word, holding you by the back of your head and pulling you to him for a desperate kiss. "I don't want anyone else, I want you. I don't give a fuck what anyone else wants to think about how I choose to spend my life and who I choose to share it with, because I know better. You're enough, you're more than enough. And if a few precautions and adjustments have to be made to make sure they can't get to you, then I'm more than happy to do all that and more.
"Our first night together I told you I just want you. As you are. That I want to make you happy." He rose from his knees, pressing a kiss to your cheek and working his way to your ear. "That I want to satisfy you. Do you remember?" You could only nod, trying and failing not to melt against him as he kissed below your ear. "I'm going to add that list of wants now. I want to make sure you feel safe, with every means I have at my disposal."
He guided you down until your back was flat on the mattress, kissing down your neck as he did so, his lips trailing a path down to just over your heart. You found it near impossible to breathe, finding yourself overwhelmed with how gentle and tender he was handling you.
"I want to love you," he said, meeting your eyes with a look that you could only describe as surrender. "I know you're not ready to hear it yet, but this can't wait anymore. You need to hear it. You need to know that the only way for me to actually have everything that I want is if I get to share everything I have with you. I need you to know that your leaving would rip my heart out." He made his way back up, stopping when your faces were mere inches apart. "I need you to know who you'd be leaving." He brushed his lips across yours in a featherlight kiss. "You would be leaving a man so completely, so desperately in love with you."
You tried to speak, but all you could manage was inaudibly mouthing his name, the sentiment you tried to stomp down just a little over a week ago fighting its way back up to the surface. Practically shouting from the back of your throat.
"I love you," he breathed out. "Please, sweetheart. Don't do this. Don't leave. Whatever you want, whatever you need so that we can make this work, we'll find our way through this together just please…I'm begging you don't tell me that what you want is to rid yourself of me--"
"That's the last thing I want," you managed to choke out, your eyes stinging with even more tears. You swallowed the lump in your throat, mustering every ounce of strength you had left to finally say the sentiment you prematurely blurted out when he first popped up at your house. "I love you, too."
You woke up the next morning the same way you'd been ever since you and Tom first got together, his arm wrapped around you, the butterflies fluttering violently in your stomach from how he held your body against his without a stitch of clothing between you two, along with the tender kisses he peppered along your shoulder. It was a routine you'd not only found yourself getting comfortable with, but you were looking forward to it whenever you felt yourself rousing from sleep.
And that part scared the living daylights out of you.
Relationships? Routines? Your mind wandering to that place that you said you never dared think about in the context of being in any kind of relationship again, because the last time you did, the rug got pulled out from under you and threw your life and the future you envisioned into a blender?
You swore to yourself that day all those years ago that you were never going to let yourself get this comfortable. That you would always have your safety measures in place so that you never had to worry about having to scramble your way back up to your feet without any sense of direction.
And you did. You had your measures. You had your walls up. You put your heart under lock and key and said you'd never give it to someone again. Yet here you were, basically opening the chest and telling Tom that it was right there for the taking.
A chest you couldn't close again even if you tried. Even if you wanted to.
The feel of his lips pressing a kiss between your neck and shoulder had you letting out a tiny whimper, making him smile and hum against your skin. "Good morning, goddess."
You were growing concerningly comfortable with that, too.
He moved you until you were lying with your back flat on the mattress, brushing his nose across yours as he gave you a contented smile. "I love you."
You couldn't help the smile that stretched across your own face hearing the words. "Hmm…careful, you keep talking like that I might get used to it."
He laid his lips on yours, giving you a tender kiss as he gently ran his hand down the side of your body before stopping at your hip, his thumb stroking your skin. "I want you to get used to it, because I'll be saying it a lot from now on." His lips traced a line down to the base of your throat. "I love you," he murmured against your skin repeatedly as he kissed along your collarbone.
"I love you, too," you whimpered as he kissed his way down to your stomach, his shaky exhale warming your skin even more. You placed your hand on his shoulder, leading him to refocus his attention to kissing his way up your arm. "I really stepped on the ledge yesterday…" you trailed off, struggling to take a deep breath as you tried to find the words, ultimately settling on the simplest ones. You weren't likely to find better words anyways. "Thank you for talking me off of it."
He took his time kissing his way back up to your lips, never breaking eye contact. "Always, my love." The new endearment, paired with the way he tenderly kissed your lips, had your head spinning. "I'm going out to get us some breakfast. I'll be back in an hour. Go back to sleep, sweetheart."
Those words had you stirring, making a motion to sit up on the bed. "What? No, you don't need to do that, you'll get papped. Gimme a few minutes to get dressed, I'll do it."
"If you go out, they'll photograph you, too," he argued. "Pictures of us are still fresh on their minds, which means these vultures are still very much on the lookout for you out and about, waiting to take pictures in hopes of selling them to the sleaziest gossip sites. Give it a week, maybe two, and they'll refocus their attention on someone else. Them and the internet."
You slumped back into the bed with a soft thud, surrendering to the fact that unfortunately, the logic made sense. You needed a good few days to let your face and those photos fade into relative irrelevancy. "You probably need your team to spin some story on why we were seen together, too," you sighed, the discomfort of having to let the wheels turn in your head before you've even had a bite of food or a sip of coffee starting to make you skittish. "I mean, the saying goes that we can't put the genie back in the bottle, but what if it isn't fully out yet? We still have a chance to…I don't know, mitigate the situation?"
Tom rested his forehead against yours, letting out a deep sigh as he laid back down on the bed as well, pulling you into his arms so that your head rested on his chest. "One day it won't be this toxic."
His words had you giggling, looking up at him and pressing a kiss to his chin. "It's adorable that you think that, but no. But one day maybe the voices of those who would genuinely just be happy for you would be louder than these snakes in the pit with their megaphones. And maybe one day I'll be strong enough to not give a fuck about any of it."
He tightened his hold on you, arms snaking around your body in an embrace that had you falling even more into that dangerous place of way too damn comfortable. "Until then I'm going to do what I can to keep you safe. It'll only be a few weeks at most. Maybe less if we're lucky and someone causes a scandal." He pressed numerous soft kisses to the tip of your nose, breaking out into a smile when his attentions caused you to let out a soft giggle. "For now, I get to keep you in the house. All to myself." His smile turned into a mischievous grin as he rolled you on to your back, rasping the next words, "Like my own beautiful brilliant little captive."
"A very willing captive," you shot back, once again going breathless when he started kissing you all over your neck and chest. "Be careful out there? Don't let them get a reaction out of you, no matter what they ask. Or what they say about me."
"I will," he mumbled, humming against your skin as he placed open-mouthed kisses along the side of your body, nipping at your waist before pulling away. He made his way to his closet, shooting a playful knowing glance at you when he saw how you propped yourself up on your elbows to enjoy the view. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart," he chuckled, throwing on his usual running gear of a black t-shirt with the Legendary logo and black shorts that were definitely a size too small with how the garment hugged and accentuated his hips and upper thighs. Not to mention how those shorts made it all too obvious that your boyfriend happily and proudly chooses neither when it came to the age-old debate of boxers or briefs.
He walked back toward the bed, sitting on the edge and leaning over you to capture your lips in a heated kiss, as if it had been weeks since he'd done it last rather than mere minutes. His hand freely roamed your side, lightly grasping at your hips while he slowly laid you back down flat on the bed. Once he had, he broke the kiss to press his lips to the tip of your nose, then to your forehead.
"I'll wake you when I'm back home. Promise me you won't check on those pages again. None of them deserve our time, or our emotions. I love you, goddess."
"I promise. I love you, too."
A/N: Welcome to the second part of the 'said it first' arc! This would probably be the angstiest moment in their entire relationship and precious bf meow meow really answered her "I'm leaving" with "No ur not I love u 🥺" and we love him for it your honor
Three more parts to this arc and hopefully I can pull myself out of playing my lil games long enough to actually get to writing any of the pieces in my rotation 😅🫡
Here's a gif for everyone who reads 'til the end of the post…this be what the blorbos were like in that last scene:
'everything' taglist:
@simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog @peaky-marvel @lokiified @tom-hlover
#tom hiddleston x reader#tom hiddleston x female reader#tom hiddleston fanfic#tom hiddleston fanfiction#tom hiddleston imagine#muddyorbs writes
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the christmas party
ceo!price x reader / smut free / ~2.8k words
A very belated Christmas drabble thing. Definitely not inspired by real life events. 👀 Featuring a fem!Reader x Price, background Ghost x Soap, and Gaz, the incredi-boss. Might fuck around make this a series, we'll see! Maybe I'll clean it up and throw it on AO3, too.
CW: alcohol, substance abuse (mentioned) inappropriate comments from coworkers
You came to expect drama at the company Christmas party. It was as traditional as the optional White Elephant gift exchange, the hired group of carolers, and the ugly sweater competition.
Last year, a 'mystery' baggie of powder and a credit card belonging to the former Head of Sales was found in a bathroom stall. Two years ago, it was the unexpectedly raunchy dancing between an engineer and a project manager you swore hated each other. Three years ago, a division head went home with someone who was definitely not her spouse.
You'd seen a lot in your tenure. The good, the bad, the ugly, the hilariously mortifying.
Coming up on your fifth year with The 141 Group, you were a rarity. Most folks job-hopped. More power to them, no shame in gaining good experience after a year or two to leave for greener pastures. The fact you stuck around labeled you a 'veteran', a cheeky if not sensational label, though there were times you certainly felt like you'd seen war. Acquisitions. Rebrands. Reorgs. Yeesh.
But life at 141 suits you. You are an executive assistant, a good one. It helps that your direct supervisor and the VP of Finance, Kyle Garrick, a fellow 'vet', was an incredible boss. He lets you work from when you need to, doesn't micromanage, and treats you like a person, unlike other execs. He had faith in your ability to manage his calendar, prep materials, book travel - in short, you organized his work life. In return, whenever some new hire got too fresh with you, all it took was one teensy mention in a morning meeting, and by lunch, the offending party had only apologies for you. Most importantly, though, the job nets enough money to make rent and let you pursue your hobbies.
With years of Christmas parties under your belt, you were looking forward to tonight's low-grade yet cataclysmic event. Pre-gaming and primping at a fellow assistant's house, Jordan, you clasp the silver holly leaf pendant around your neck where it lies just above your modest cleavage. The dress code was simply 'Christmas Color', another tradition. Formal attire was expected, if not an unsaid requirement, which meant slipping into a gorgeous dark green dress you spied weeks ago in a boutique window. You thank yourself for earning that last pay bump to afford it because you look fantastic, in your humble opinion.
Lacing her leather Oxfords, Jordan gives a low whistle when you turn away from the mirror. "Like a big, sexy pine tree."
You smirk. "Thanks. Remind me why we both couldn't wear red tonight?"
"Because of the two of us, red is my color. Do I not look like some kind of holiday vampire?" She asks, standing with a sweeping gesture down at her deep, red velvet suit.
"More bellboy, but-"
"Rude!"
The two of you lovingly bicker all the way out to the awaiting car. The 141 Group, ever mindful of its image, always reimbursed rideshares for its company parties. Given the amount of liquor that flowed at these events, it wasn't only generous but smart. Like the higher-ups needed a scandal. The car ferries you across town to the ritzy event space at a local art museum. Leaving your coats at the complimentary bag check, you enter the well-underway party.
The events team needs a raise, like yesterday. The sprawling space was completely done up. Several open bars, a champagne wall, a photo op with a to-scale Santa's Sleigh, and dining tables with place settings that probably rival a monarch. Silvery white birch trees enveloped in lights line the walls, with clusters of small fir trees fully decorated dotting the space. The dancefloor was already busy with a DJ fully dressed as Santa.
Four going on five years, and it was still quite the sight.
You gently elbow Jordan. "So. Cheesy themed cocktails first or canapes?"
"Obviously drinks. I just saw one with an ornament in it!"
~~
Three hours in, it was a dead heat for Most Dramatic Event. Two separate calamities slowly built throughout the night.
At the nexus of the first, Chad from marketing was almost blacked out. After winning the ugly sweater with a true abomination of a sweater (working lights, a mini speaker, and an ungodly amount of sequins), he celebrated. A little hard. He bopped from open bar to open bar as the bartenders cut him off one by one. He was trying to convince a coworker to grab him another Mistletoe Martini, and it was progressively getting louder.
The second was from the rumor mill more than anything. Apparently, a developer named Scott brought the wrong gift for the exchange. As the story went, his wife used the same paper for an identically sized gift, one of a titillating nature, and now he was visibly paranoid that he nabbed the wrong one on the way out the door. The man stalked the pile of gifts as folks drew numbers.
Jordan bet on the first, and you bet on the second. From the corner, you watch, giggling behind a cup of Prancer's Punch.
The sound of your name drew your attention. Kyle, in a charcoal gray suit with a sleek snowflake tie bar and green tie, approaches with a Tiny Tim Collins in hand. Though you waved hello earlier in the night, he spent most of the evening in the company of who you deemed his 'buddies' - Johnny MacTavish, VP of Technology and Jordan's boss, and Simon Riley, the Chief Security Officer. You learned in your first month to leave the trio to it.
"Having fun, are we?" Kyle grins and turns to observe the twin events.
"I love this party. Every year, delivers just like Santa," Jordan gleefully said.
"Someone should stop them," You add, knowing nobody would. At least not Kyle.
And as if on cue, the man chuckles. "Not my circus, not my clowns."
The three of you chat, swapping bits of office gossip collected through the night. Not the most appropriate, but not the worst social crime, surely. You're the right amount of tipsy: warm and relaxed but solid.
The wager came up naturally.
"What do you want if you win, my pine tree?"
"Hmm. It's gotta be something outrageous but not a fireable offense. Hmm. Maybe I'll have you sing on a video call, pretend you thought you were on mute or something."
"...That's boring."
"Do I want to know?" Kyle asks, sipping his drink.
"We have a bet on who's gonna be this year's drama - Chad or Scott." You explain.
"Maybe I ought to get back…" Your boss said with a laugh. "Better not witness to whatever you two plan."
"Might be for the best. Night, Kyle," You accept the brief hug from the man, then poke a finger against his chest. "Listen, if I get one DM about work during the holiday, I'm switching your coffee to decaf."
Kyle claps a hand over his heart as if he's been shot. "Monstrous. Fine, have it your way, no work during Christmas…Now, behave yourself, both of you."
Watching him retreat back to MacTavish and Riley (who look quite cozy - perhaps another piece of gossip?), Jordan nudges you. "If I was into guys, that's who I'd be into."
"You and like fifty other people here," As Kyle's assistant, you're more than his Girl Friday; you're also a professional gatekeeper. You could wallpaper your apartment with the amount of cringy notes you've stopped from reaching his desk.
"Not your type, then?"
You whip your head back to Jordan, utterly horrified. "No way. Not that Kyle isn't an absolute dreamboat; he's just not my dreamboat. Plus, at this point, it would be so, so weird."
Jordan laughs. "Y'know, even though we've been work besties for a year, I don't think we've ever discussed this. What is your type? As dudes are not my specialty, I have no clue."
Your type, huh? As if you don't know. Your type's been the same for as long as you can remember. Big and brawny, the kind of guy who could haul you around. Dark hair. Well-groomed, well-dressed, well-endow–You could still make it onto the naughty list.
Using better and cleaner terms, you relay this information to Jordan.
"Huh. A man's man. Whodathunk–oh! Oh shit, look who it is!" The other woman pats your arm and gestures with a nod.
Joining Kyle and his buddies, is none other than John Price - CEO of The 141 Group. Fashionably late (very fashionably late), yet another tradition. Adorned in a Santa red suit jacket and a matching red tie, he somehow makes the boring dress code dashing. Flanking him is a pair of bodyguards. He's just in time for the wager to come to a head.
God, he looks good.
As Kyle's assistant, you see John fairly regularly. Not that he sees you. No one above a certain pay grade sees assistants. You kind of just blend right on in. Not even Mr. Riley, whom you've been introduced to a dozen times by Kyle himself, recalls your name. When you tag along to meetings to take notes for the boss man, you assume you're on the same level as a lamp or plant. That doesn't mean you haven't ogled John Price before. Kind of hard to not to, what with his commanding presence. You're kind of ogling him right now.
"Wow, you really do have a type," Jordan hums with a shit-eating grin.
"Shut up," You hiss into your drink and look away, just in time to see Chad from marketing lift a gift box-shaped ice sculpture and smash it onto the ground next to one of the open bars with a frustrated yell. The poor bartender and caterers jump back, and the music scratches to a halt. A thick silence fell over the party, impressive for a crowd of over a hundred, and your eyes flick to Mr. Price.
He glares daggers in Chad's direction, then nods at the taller of his bodyguards. Without hesitation, the man crosses the event space toward a petrified, drunk-crying Chad. As the guard hauls him away, your coworker, or former coworker, you assume, bursts into ugly tears and then disappears from sight. But your eyes are still on John, whose gaze turns to the DJ. The music starts again, as does the chatter.
"Fuck yes," Jordan giddily whispers.
"Well, shit."
"You know what this means, don't you?"
"...Unfortunately, yes. Yes, I do," You sigh and down the rest of your drink. "Before you swing the axe, let me grab another punch."
"Hurry back, I've got my thinking cap on," Jordan impishly smirks.
With a groan, you make your way to the nearest open bar. One far from Chad's little tantrum. Most folks are on the dance floor at this hour, leaving this particular bar quiet. Waiting in line behind other tipsy coworkers, a clearing throat behind you grabs your attention.
"D'you have a recommendation?" A low, gravelly voice from all your best dreams asks.
You turn, and the sweet Hallmark-worthy image that blossomed in your mind in the last two seconds promptly morphs into a nightmare. Not a running-for-your-life nightmare, but a you're-the-only-naked-person-in-class nightmare. Laughable, considering the topic of conversation not three minutes ago.
John Price stands tall behind you, arms crossed, testing the fabric of his red suit jacket. He smells like tobacco and something spicy, and his eyes are a shade of blue you hadn't noticed before. You never got this close. They narrow slightly, and you realize you haven't answered him.
"Prancer's Punch." The name sounds cornier aloud.
"Hmm. Brandy or rum?" He sounds unimpressed. Was he unimpressed?
You're quicker to answer this time. Except, you babble. "It's, uh, made with dark rum. It's delicious. I've had a few. The cranberry juice isn't too tart, compliments the sparkling wine and–It's good."
Santa, run me over with your reindeer.
Kyle would be humiliated to have heard all of that. You are humiliated for having said all of that.
To your surprise though, the corner of John's mouth hooks in a smirk, then he chuckles. "How many qualifies as 'a few'?"
You, apparently committed to acting moronically, answer honestly. "Five."
It gets you an actual laugh this time. His hand raises up to scritch at his cheek, flashing the band of a watch you're certain is worth more than your life, then juts his chin forward slightly. "You're up, miss."
"Oh, no, Mr. Price, I insist, please-" You start to sidestep to let him up in line, but his hand lowers immediately and stretches out to stop you. He doesn't touch you, but the hair of your arm stands up at the proximity.
John smiles again, and his head tips toward you. "I insist. Join me, Miss…?"
"Mr. Price?" A voice suddenly interrupts. The taller bodyguard that removed Chad steps up and steals away Mr. Price's attention. "The problem's been dealt with. Regarding…"
You don't hear the rest of the conversation because you hurriedly ask for a punch and bolt back to Jordan.
And Jordan saw everything. Your heart is racing, and you miss half of her teasing.
"You made him laugh. Twice. I don't think I've ever seen him smile, let alone laugh."
"Because I basically admitted to being drunk!"
"Calm down, you're not, you're solid," She reassures. "Besides. You saw that death glare at Chad. If he was upset, I reckon you'd be on the receiving end of one of those."
You groan and take a swig of punch. You hope you've had enough of the good stuff to burn away the memory of your embarrassing rambling. You look back to Jordan to say something and find your friend once again grinning devilishly at you.
"I just thought of what I want for my victory."
Any time, Santa. Put me out of my misery.
"What?"
"So…You know #AskPrice?"
You know where this is going, and your eyeballs nearly bulge out of their sockets. "Jordan. Please. No. Do not make me post something stupid there."
#AskPrice was the name of the open channel at work. Anyone across the company could post questions for Mr. Price to answer. More often than not, it was a venue for bootlickers and kiss-asses to rain praises and share bad proposals. Rarely was there a legitimate question or a good idea.
"Darling, of course not. I have something far funnier in mind," She started, and you swore you saw the flames of hell itself in her eyes. "You're going to direct message Mr. Price and ask what he wants for Christmas."
Jaw, meet floor. "Absolutely not!"
Jordan laughs and hooks an arm around your neck, pulling you in. "Come on. It's harmless. Believe me, I considered making you send a selfie or asking if you're on the naughty or nice list."
"He could fire me!"
"For what? It's just a question! He always says we're welcome to DM him."
To be fair, Mr. Price did say that at the end of every company-wide call or in email announcements. He always harps on 'transparency' and 'open channels of communication', hence #AskPrice. To your knowledge, however, no one ever takes him up on that, at least at your level.
"Jordan…Mercy. Please."
"My sweet pine tree, you lost fair and square," She releases you and pats your shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, I bet he gets a thousand messages a day. The notification will get lost in the noise."
It doesn't take much more prodding and encouragement from Jordan. Your phone ends up in your hand, and you tap into the chat app. Your hand shakes a little when you pull up John's username and open the message dialogue.
johnprice - invisible
Hi, Mr. Price. I was wondering what you want for Christmas?
Short and to the point. Jordan calls it 'boring', but you're already putting your neck on the line for a stupid wager. You're not risking anymore by dressing it up. Bet fulfilled, you press send, quickly turn notifications off, and shove your phone back into your little purse. Jordan rewards you with a squeeze to the shoulder.
"That was terrifying." You whine.
"That was a rush. Come on. Let's dance."
~~
The next morning, when you're all but molded to your couch and housing takeaway, there's a little ping from your phone. It's the chime of the chat app.
"Kyle, for the love of everything, it's Sunday–"
You nearly drop your phone.
johnprice - invisible
Hi, Mr. Price. I was wondering what you want for Christmas?
> World peace.
> I'd settle for a drink, though.
#call of duty#john price#captain john price#captain price#price x you#price x reader#john price x you#john price x reader#john price x female reader#price x female reader#cod fanfic#cod fic#ceo!john price
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❧ word count: 18.3k
❧ warnings: cursing, renjun gets CONSENSUALLY dosed with a magical aphrodisiac For Science
❧ genre: fluff, humor, one (1) heavy makeout scene but no actual smut, 0.1 seconds of angst if you can even call it that, academic rivals to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, siren reader, human renjun ft. siren ten, same universe as strawberry sunday
❧ extra info: in my lore, siren scales are visible when they’re in more human-like forms because of magic, and it’s not an indication of their skin tone at all. so when the reader’s scales are mentioned, please don’t take this as any sort of allusion to them being pale/light-skinned! i tried to take care and make sure i wasn’t implying that in how i wrote it, but please tell me if it reads like that
this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!)
❧ author’s note: y’all. get ready for this one. no spoilers but renjun and reader r both crazy and nobody should be subjected to them except each other. like they both look at the other and think “i could fix them but whatever the fuck is wrong with them is infinitely funnier to me” but they’re both Wrong. they could not fix the other. i don't want what they have but good for them. anyway as always i had way too much fun writing this that it went over my projected word count and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it too
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!
“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.
“Why?”
“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”
2608, 2610, 2612…
The numbers of the study rooms you passed by went up, up, up, as you continued your hunt. You knew he’d be here. It was the day before the first test in your Linguistics in Magical Creatures Studies class, meaning he was going to be holed up in the library until closing time. Now it was just a matter of finding him. Somewhere quiet, obviously, which was why you’d completely skipped the first floor with its wide-open “collaboration areas.” The second floor was all bookshelves and private study rooms that would hold four or five students at most. You peered into the narrow window on each painted metal door as you walked down the hall. While the first floor was recently renovated with new technology and upgrades such as the “collaboration areas” and bright pops of your university’s school colors that made for great promotional photos to put on the website and pamphlets to hand out to new students, this floor hadn’t had seen anything more than a janitor in a good couple decades. The musty, stale smell of old, unused books was all around you, the air conditioning hummed and clicked irregularly, all the furniture had ugly, outdated patterns, and the exactly three desktop computers they did have in a far back corner were practically as old as you. Which, in the digital age, meant that they were artifacts belonging in a museum.
And of course, sitting at very last one, as if he had been hiding behind all of these bookshelves from you personally, was Huang Renjun.
Renjun was sat in the wooden chair facing the computer, clearly deep in thought. He had one foot propped up on the wide chair seat as both of his hands were on the archaic-looking keyboard, speedily typing something out. He wore a pair of jeans, yellow hoodie, and a red backwards baseball cap kept his hair out of his face. An open energy drink can and empty bag of chips on the desk next to him belied that he had already been there for some time.
Now that you had found your target, you put on a burst of speed, stalking up to him from the side and smacking your hand down on the tabletop beside him. “Renjun.”
The human jumped in his seat, looking up from his screen to you. Taking his hands from the keyboard, he made a couple quick clicks on the mouse as he used the other to take his headphones out of his ears. “Y/N. Fucking hell… is your new strategy this semester to give me a heart attack and kill me?”
“If murder was on the table as part of our little academic rivalry, don’t you think I would’ve just drowned you after our Intro course freshman year?” You asked, tilting your head innocently. After all, you were a siren, that would be much easier than scaring him into an early cardiac episode.
Huang Renjun was not your friend. Not necessarily an acquaintance either, you’d known him for going on four years now, since your first class on your first day of college. The two of you were in the same Introduction to Magical Creatures Studies class. He had sat in the very front row, you just behind him in the second row. When your professor had asked an open question to the class, both you and Renjun eagerly blurted out the answer, Renjun just a millisecond before you. Dr. Li gave him the credit, and also requested that you two raise your hands in the future. And from then on you hated Huang Renjun.
Well, hate may be a strong word. You overlapped in at least two classes every semester being in the same major, and were both chronic overachievers. The first to raise your hands when a question was asked, studying in the library until closing (separately), and visiting professors’ office hours just to discuss topics from class further. Your professors noticed this. Some would pit the two of you against each other, and others would try to pair you up, whether on projects, research, or just in general, as a meeting of the minds or whatever. And you two would get your project done, pocket your As, and part ways again. Academic rival slash frenemy was the best way you could describe who Huang Renjun was to you.
“Who knows, you might still, if they ask me to carry the banner,” he muttered, picking his pen up and spinning it between his fingers.
This was your last semester, both you and Renjun were graduating in just a few months. At commencement, each department picked one “outstanding student” to lead the progression, carrying a flag with the department’s name and seal on it. This semester it was Magical Creatures Studies’ turn to select a student for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and your program head had already heavily implied that they could choose either you or Renjun, but they hadn’t made their final decision yet.
This was actually a pretty good segue into what you were really here to talk to him about. Pulling your lips into an alluring smirk, you nodded, “You’re right. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that—”
“A fucking what?” He cut you off, his face scrunching up as he blinked at you in confusion.
“Obviously it’s going to be one of us two, since we’re the two best students in the program.”
“Well, yes.” He nodded, seeming to let go of what had presumably been another one of your jumbled human malaphors. You admittedly hadn’t been living among humans for terribly long, and for some reason their idioms just didn’t stick in your brain very well.
“I mean, we not only are dedicated to the field itself and the content we study in class, but the program too. We probably know everybody in it, professors and students, right? Between the two of us?”
Renjun considered this for a moment. “Yeah, probably. We’ve both taken on a lot of SI and tutor opportunities for lower-level classes.”
“Right. So, you know those forums the school has on the online class platform? The general message boards?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m going to need you to sit tight with me on this until I finish talking, okay?” You pointed at him sternly. He nodded slowly. “Good. Back in the fall, about the end of September, I was on the message boards, just browsing around killing time. I was in the Tips & Advice section and saw this post. It was a gryphon who was losing feathers on one specific spot on her wing, and she didn’t know why. The witch she went to didn’t know why, nobody could figure it out. I was about to reply asking if it was her left or right, when I saw that somebody else already had. It was her left, and she’s a lefty. The same person replied again, asking if she sleeps with her wings out or not. She sleeps with them out. It turns out she was stress-preening in her sleep. Username: dr_magic2303. A couple weeks later, same message board, Tips & Advice, a human is suddenly producing dark purple goop from his feet but it’s so slippery he can’t even leave to go see a doctor or a witch and he was typing the post from his bathroom. Within an hour, this Dr. Magic is back telling him someone’s put an aether ooze hex on him, and to sit down and scoot on his butt to the kitchen and gather up all these ingredients for a cleansing foot bath. And if he doesn’t have them, then he’ll have to butt-scoot his way to an apothecary or call one who does home deliveries. Now people are posting on there specifically asking Dr. Magic to come heal all their magical aches and pains.”
Renjun stared at you, unblinking. The pen had gone still in his hand.
You breathed in, continuing, “I tracked this Dr. Magic all the way back to their first post in the first week of fall semester of this year. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out who they are on my own, and I’ve made a lot of progress on who they aren’t. But I’m going to lose access to those message boards once we graduate at the end of the semester. I know Dr. Magic has to be an MCS major, there’s no way they would be able to have to breadth, depth, and flexibility of knowledge by just Googling this stuff. And you and me, Renjun, I know we can do this. Not only do we know MCS, but we know the department, the people in it. It has to be us.”
He was still staring at you, mouth slightly agape. Then, his whole demeanor shifted. He dropped his leg so that both his feet were on the ground, and he resumed spinning the pen.
“Okay. I’ll help you.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If you’ll do something for me.”
“Do what?” You straightened up.
“I’ll tell you after we find Dr. Magic.”
You crossed your arms. “No, tell me now or no deal.”
“I tell you after, but you can still say no then if you don’t want to do it.” He bargained.
“That just sounds even more concerning, Renjun. Tell me now or I’ll do it myself.”
“I’m hurt. What happened to ‘it has to be us?’”
“I’m a siren, I know how to sweet talk. Don’t take it personally.” You snorted. “Now, what do you want from me?”
“You’re a siren,” he echoed plainly, as if that were all the explanation you needed.
“And you’re a genius.” You retorted. “Tell me now or I walk out.”
“I... want to experience siren venom. For science.”
Oh, you could kiss him right now, no deal necessary. He was meeting your gaze head-on, a slightly unhinged glint in his eye. Not a hint of fear, just a craving for new experiences, unbridled curiosity. Yeah, he was a bit crazy, you were realizing four years on, and you wanted him.
“You’re insane.”
He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands up in front of him in an ‘I-don’t-care’ gesture, “If you don’t want to find Dr. Magic—”
“I didn’t say no, I said you’re insane,” you corrected him with a grin, dragging your eyes up and down his form as he sat so confidently, negotiating with a siren like it was any average Tuesday for him.
“So do we have a deal?” He set his pen down and held a hand out to you.
“You help me find Dr. Magic, then I’ll spit in your mouth.” You momentarily thought about the disparity in division of labor on that, but decided not to point it out aloud. Easiest handshake of your life. “Deal.”
You wanted to eat him alive.
“You’ve tried IP tracking?” Renjun asked, scrolling through your word document of notes that you’d accumulated on Dr. Magic.
“‘You’ve tried IP tracking?’” You mimicked him under your breath, making your voice so high-pitched to the point of mocking.
He rolled his eyes.
This was your first meet-up to try to hunt down Dr. Magic together. It was a couple weeks after he had agreed to help you in the first place. There was a test and some assignments in a few of your classes to get through first before either of you had enough spare time to dedicate to this. But now the two of you were back in the library, having taken a study room on the second floor and set up with your own laptops. You’d sent him your notes to look through on it while you perused the message board for any new posts from Dr. Magic.
“You do know that any geographical location an IP address can give you will just be the city, right? It’s not like the movies,” you snorted, dropping your voice back down to your normal intonation as you shook your head. “Anyway, I did do some extra legwork with the IPs, and matched most of them to desktop computers here in the library. I think the others are a personal device, their laptop or something.”
“They’re all different.”
You tutted at him, “Oh, you sweet Thursday’s child…”
“That’s not the say—”
“They’re all somehow on other continents. Now, I don’t think Dr. Magic teleporting abroad and cross-dimensionally to make forum posts.”
“VPN?”
“Definitely. They’re covering their tracks, they almost never use their own device, and when they have to, they use a VPN to cover up the IP address of it.”
He made a noise of acknowledgement, eyes still focused on his screen.
Then, something on the forum caught your eye. “Oh! Right here. Thirty-six minutes ago, a dryad posted that she can’t sprout daffodils from her body anymore. Every other plant and flower are fine, except daffodils. She posted it specifically asking Dr. Magic if they know what’s wrong with her.”
“Huh.” Renjun’s brow furrowed. “Just daffodils?”
“That’s what it says,” you confirmed, making a few clicks on your computer. “And… ‘notify me.’”
“You can turn on notifications for forum posts?”
“You can’t,” you informed him smugly. “But one of the sirens in my pod, he’s got a bunch of CompSci friends who I paid to write a browser extension for me that bookmarks forum posts and sends me email notifications when anybody replies to them. So I’ll know exactly when Dr. Magic responds.”
“You…”
“Have definitely spent too much time, energy, and money on this, I know. Sunken cost fallacy, look it up.”
“I was going to say ‘are insane,’” he breathed out, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.
When you looked up from your computer at him, you saw that he had a curious gaze fixated on you, eyes narrowed slightly, mouth parted, and head tilted ever so slightly to the side.
You leaned forward minutely, holding his eye contact. “Takes one to know one, Junnie.”
He looked down at his keyboard, shifting in his seat before he looked back up at you. “Why are you calling me that?”
“Do you not like it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you do like it.” You smirked.
He frowned. “I didn’t say that either.”
“Well do you?”
“Answer my question.”
“Answer mine.”
“I asked first.”
“Ooh, how very primary school,” you teased, setting your chin in your hand.
“It’s only fair.” He pointed out.
“We could flip a coin.”
“Y/N.”
“Junnie.”
The human sighed, holding your eye contact wordlessly, looking entirely unamused.
You finally gave in with a casual shrug. “I just am.”
“Seriously? We’ve known each other for four years and you’ve never called me that—you’ve called me plenty of other things—but now suddenly you’ve got a nickname for me?”
“I’m not trying to be derogatory with it, if you’re worried about that,” you clarified. “Just sort of happened. I’m a siren, I flirt with cute people, sorry. Do you want me to stop calling you that?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing some off his face as he turned his focus back down to his screen. “It’s fine.”
“Anyway, I bookmarked the new forum post, so it’ll go on the board.”
“The board?”
“I, uh, I may be using a spare wall in my apartment to host a conspiracy theory board with you know, the red string and thumbtacks and stuff…” You admitted quietly.
“Can I see it?”
“Ho-ly shit,” Renjun breathed out, staring up at the multiple time-stamped printouts of forum posts, pictures of classmates and faculty, sticky notes, and yards of red string that you had pinned to a blank wall in your apartment.
You stood next to him, gazing up at your creation with a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment. This was the first time you’d let someone see this, and you were kind of glad it was Renjun. He actually seemed impressed. You were sure that any of your friends and family would be weirded out at best, and very concerned at worst.
“Yeah, I’m adding color copies off the school printers to the invoice I’m sending Dr. Magic at the end of all this.”
“You’re sending them an invoice for your self-assigned mission to hunt them down?” He snorted.
“Yup. It’s their fault for not using their school-issued login.” You crossed your arms. “Makes them enigmatic.”
Your classmate pointed to one of the headshots. “Is that Dr. Li?”
“Did you think our scope was narrowed to just students? Faculty have access to the message boards, too. And we’ve learned everything we know from our professors, so they obviously have the knowledge and skill to be Dr. Magic.”
“And their names also start with Doctor.” He added dryly, which you took to be a joke.
You decided that it wasn’t at your expense, though, and after giving a short chuckle, continued on with your explanation of why you specifically had your program head up on the board. “When I was grilling Dr. Li for information in the fall, he was giving me very duplicitous answers. Pointed me towards a freshman who I swear didn’t even know the difference between Arctic sirens and glacial sirens.”
“You think it was a diversion.”
“Obviously.”
Renjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “What sort of questions were you asking him?”
“I couldn’t straight up ask him if he was Dr. Magic. So I was asking him things like... other than you and me, who did he think was the best student in the program, that kind of stuff. Said that kid reminded him of you and me on that first day of Intro to MCS.” You couldn’t help but let out an indignant scoff at the idea. “Can you believe? Didn’t know the difference between Arctic and glacial sirens…”
“Who was it?”
“Some basilisk in one of his Intro classes last semester. Uh…” You snapped your fingers as you tried to remember his name. “Seunghan! Hong Seunghan!”
“Seriously?” The human turned to look at you incredulously, clearly offended at the comparison as well.
“Seriously!”
He clutched at his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “That’s who he thinks is the next us? I was an SI for that class…”
“I know! He’s not the brightest tool in the shed, huh?”
“So close, Y/N. So close…” He sighed.
“It almost completely threw me off my search for Dr. Magic. I figured I needed to seriously step up my game in his undergrad research or something.” You shook your head at the horrible memory. “Then I realized he might have been trying to get me to do exactly that.”
“Huh.” Renjun folded his arms over his chest as he looked away, pretending not to seem interested. “You did research with Dr. Li last semester?”
“Don’t give me those kicked puppy dog eyes, you’re doing research with Dr. Kwon this semester and she’s like, my academic idol!” You pointed at him accusatorily.
“And Dr. Li is mine!”
You waved your arms in front of you, shaking yourself out of the academic envy-induced frenzy you’d gotten worked up into. “We’re getting off-topic. We’re here to catch Dr. Magic, remember?”
“Right…” He took a deep breath, turning back to the conspiracy wall.
As Renjun studied your work, you studied him. You had a strand of fairy lights clipped up above the conspiracy wall for light and ambiance (mostly ambiance), and they now lit his features from the front. He didn’t have a baseball cap on today, leaving his brown hair to fall over his forehead, down past his eyebrows and just into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head slightly. A piece had presumably been bothering him. The curving slope of the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin that he still had one hand propped up to hold, a finger tapping against his cupid’s bow like a metronome. You listened closer, curious if it would be mimicking the beat of his heart. The tapping was just slightly slower than his heart, and would stop if he found something that he took particular interest in, then start back up when he moved on again.
Not that you were going to tell him, but you were double motivated to find Dr. Magic now. Seeing Renjun under your venom was going to be a reward all on its own. You understood full well why he felt like he needed to ask you as part of an exchange like this, but he seemed to greatly underestimate his own selling value. Which was good for you. This was a win-win-win in your eyes.
Thinking of the deal made you curious, though. He had that request ready to go almost like…
“So, do you want to be petrified by a basilisk, too?”
Renjun didn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Already have been.”
“Really?”
“My friend Mark is a basilisk. When he had just gotten his powers a couple years ago and couldn’t control them, he kept accidentally petrifying his human roommate. So I figured out when it was most likely to happen, invited myself over and hid his sunglasses. It was strange, being able to think but not speak, see but not blink, and telling my muscles to move and not having them obey.” He casually detailed what sounded like one of the most horrifying experiences ever to you, leaning in towards a specific post from November. “But it only lasted one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”
You stared at him with both admiration and alarm. “You manufactured an opportunity to get petrified.”
“I knew he wouldn’t do it if I asked. He’s a wimp. That, and he couldn’t do it on command at the time, even if he did agree.”
“Have you had your blood drank?”
“Yup.”
“Been flying?”
“How so?” His eyes flicked over to you for a second, and you were glad that you had relaxed again with the more casual conversation.
“With a gryphon, phoenix, take your pick.” You shrugged.
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you have a list for this stuff or something?”
“Written down, no. But I suppose I have a mental list.”
“Poisoned by a wyvern?”
“Would have to find one first.”
You felt your eyes bug out of your head. “You want to be poisoned by a wyvern? You know there’s no cure for that, right?”
“Yes, I took the same class that you did on them last spring.” He reminded you tersely. Your head jerked back minutely, surprised for a second that he had noticed, remembered, and brought it up. The two of you didn’t have a spat in that class, taking an ‘ignore and pretend the other doesn’t exist’ approach that semester when you could, and hadn’t mentioned it since. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Renjun rushed to move on, “So I also know that there’s no cure because they went extinct hundreds of years ago.”
“Supposedly.”
“You think they’re still out there?”
“Maybe.”
“Hm.” He stepped to the side to read over the next post from the first week of December.
You scoffed. “Okay, coming from the guy who believes in aliens.”
“We haven’t explored all of space. But we know what habitats wyverns lived in, and they’re not there anymore.”
“They could’ve adapted, gone somewhere else,” you tried to argue. “I’m not exactly splashing around the ocean right now, am I?”
“Where did they go, then?”
“I... I don’t know,” you admitted, holding yourself by your arms protectively.
“Hmph.”
You tightened your grip, swallowing hard against the lump threatening to grow in your throat. “I just don’t want to believe they’re gone, okay?”
“So this isn’t a scientific hypothesis, but some rosy daydream?” Renjun’s disapproval of the lack of academic rigor in your argument was clear in his tone as his eyes never left your wall, following a red string up to your next connection for Dr. Magic.
“I don’t want to believe that wyverns went extinct because that means that sirens could too! Alright?” You finally snapped, hands squeezing tightly around your biceps as your claws came out with the raw burst of emotion. “I know that Magical Conservation was just some class to you, but I had to sit there and take notes on how exactly the native habitats of sirens—me, my friends, my family—are shrinking, and could theoretically lead to our extinction, and then write a discussion post on it after like it was some intellectually stimulating bit of information. So yeah, maybe I like to imagine that there’s still wyverns out there somewhere, because it gives me a modicum of hope that after everything, there could still be sirens, too. Sorry that that’s not academic enough.”
The image of Renjun that you had been yelling at in front of you was wavering as tears swam in your vision. He’d turned around to listen, mouth parting as he seemed to immediately realize his mistake. The human nodded regretfully, running a hand through his hair before finally picking his words.
“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive. I-I misread the tone of the discussion. Sirens aren’t wyverns, and you won’t meet the same fate they might have. Siren advocacy and conservation groups are making huge progress. The world now is a lot different than it was hundreds of years ago,” Renjun said, and you could hear both the remorse and firm belief in his tone. “And who knows, maybe there are still some wyverns out there. I could be wrong... it’s been known to happen before.”
You took a deep breath, your claws receding back into your fingers and just leaving your normal fingernails. As you looked down at your arms, though, you let out a sigh.
“Damn, I got myself.” You clicked your tongue in your throat regretfully, spotting a few drops of what looked like molten silver metal welling to the surface where you’d punctured your skin.
“Ooh,” Renjun winced sympathetically. “Do you have some… bandages?”
“Even better, I’ve got running water.” You started towards the door, then noted that there were no footsteps behind you. Turning back around, you looked at the human knowingly. “Do you want to watch, Renjun?”
He perked up. “Please?”
“Come on,” you jerked your head, holding your arms level as you shuffled towards your kitchen.
Thankfully, you hadn’t been nearly deep enough to get your scales, just the skin overtop. Turning the kitchen faucet on, you grabbed one of your sleeves, then looked at your classmate imploringly.
“A little help, Junnie?” You nodded towards your other arm, where the end of your sleeve was getting close to your blood.
“Oh, sure.” He surged forward to help you roll up the other one.
“I know you know this but be careful not to touch my blood,” you reminded him, finally pulling up the sleeve you’d started on well enough. Siren blood was a neurotoxin to humans—and not the fun kind like your venom, but a proper ‘kill you in an excruciatingly painful way’ kind.
“Uh-huh, got it.”
A couple drops on your left and a drop on your right had run down to your elbows, and you just managed to catch yourself so that they dripped into the sink and not onto your counter (or gods forbid, Renjun). Looking over to make sure he was watching, you stuck your left bicep under the stream of water first. The ocean blue scales that peeked through your skin shimmered in the kitchen lights directly above your head. Thankfully you hadn’t come anywhere close to nicking one of those. That would’ve actually hurt. Within a second of touching the water your skin had meshed itself back together. You turned your arm to rinse off the blood, then brought it back out to show that there was no scar left. Doing the same with the other, it healed just as quick, no mark left behind to indicate that anything had ever happened.
“Yep…” Renjun breathed out as you grabbed a hand towel and went to dry off your arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”
“How many does that make?” You giggled.
“What?”
“How many creatures have you seen magically heal themselves? What number am I?”
“You make me sound so…”
“Like a common MCS whore?”
“I was going to say clinical, but damn, tell me how you really feel, Y/N.”
Both of you laughed, and you put the hand towel back.
“You’re the first siren,” Renjun answered your question genuinely anyway.
You hummed as you mulled this over. “I’ll take it.”
He made a dramatic motion of wiping sweat off his forehead, and you reached forward to smack his forearm. You two laughed again.
After a bout of comfortable silence, your eyes settled on him again, still thinking about exactly how you’d accidentally stabbed yourself in the first place.
“I forgive you, by the way,” you said. “I don’t think I said that.”
“You didn’t.” He nodded. “Thank you.”
“You really mean all that? You think I’ll—we’ll be okay? Sirens?”
“Of course I mean it. Or I wouldn’t have said it. It’s the most scientifically plausible. I did take that Magical Conservation class seriously, you know. I know it couldn’t have meant the same thing for me as it means to you, but I did my final paper on siren conservation projects in the Arctic. The progress that’s being made there is incredible. I-I don’t want to tell you about your own species’ problems, obviously, but—”
“I did mine on siren conservation in the tropics.” You let out a dry chuckle at the flawless symbiosis. “You can tell me about your paper sometime, Renjun.”
“And I’d love to hear about siren conservation in the tropics.”
“Ah, ‘a meeting of the minds.’” You did your best impression of Dr. Li, thinning your voice out to sound like an elderly man, which garnered a smile from Renjun. “Isn’t this what our professors always wanted?”
“Uh-oh. We’re giving them exactly what they want.” He shook his head ruefully. “Quick, you need to start yelling at me about something.”
“Well you need to say something obnoxious first.”
Another gentle lull in the conversation, and you watched as Renjun looked around your apartment a lot more carefully than when you two had first entered. Your destination then had been solely the conspiracy wall, but now he seemed to be really taking it in.
“So why don’t you have like… a fish tank or something?” He asked.
“Because that would be cruel! Imagine if someone kept you in a 2-foot by 2-foot box!” You jabbed a finger into his chest accusatorily.
He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”
“I’m glad you said it, because I was about to.”
“So why don’t you reply? To the posts.” Renjun asked curiously, back to trolling the message boards for new Dr. Magic posts. You two were holed up in your second floor study room again. “You’ve been tracking Dr. Magic so closely, you’re getting to these posts before they do, and you can help all these students, too. So why don’t you just reply instead?”
Yours and Renjun’s search for Dr. Magic had been going on for a month now, and he’d been proving himself useful. He’d finally convinced you to rule out Dr. Li as a suspect when he found a message board post made from a school computer while Dr. Li was away at a conference giving a presentation. Confirmed to be done at the exact same time. So you’d found another wrong person, but you still didn’t feel any closer to the right person. The remaining people felt like they were going to turn out to be dead ends, and there was nobody good to rule in either.
Spring break was coming up in a few weeks, which meant that commencement preparations would be starting, which meant that the colleges would be announcing who would be chosen to carry their banners, which meant the actual students who were going to be chosen would be told at least a week or two ahead of time. Every time you thought about that you wanted to bite something. Maybe there was some ancestral link between sirens and werewolves. Another paper waiting to be written.
“They don’t want me. They want Dr. Magic.” You told Renjun, hating the irritable edge in your voice when you addressed him. You weren’t upset with him, you were just anxious in general. He didn’t deserve to have you take it out on him.
“Right. Sorry…”
“No, Renjun, I’m sorry,” you sighed, taking the wood pencil out of your mouth that you had been gnawing on. “I just want to get this Dr. Magic stuff over with before midterms because you and I are both going to get super busy studying for midterms, and then no matter which one of us gets picked to carry the banner, that’s going to suck up a lot of time preparing for commencement too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you though, sorry.”
He offered you a small smile. “It’s okay, I get it. It’s another deadline. But it’s a group project, remember? We’ve got this, Y/N.”
You nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just feeling the pressure. I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You coming?”
“No, I’ll keep chugging along.”
“Okay. You want anything?”
“Nah. Thanks, though.”
“Alright,” you nodded, standing up and rolling your neck out. “I’m going to stretch my legs while I’m up, so I’ll be a few.”
“I won’t sound the alarm then.” He gave you a two-fingered salute as you headed to the door.
You meandered around the second floor, taking your sweet time to get to the stairs. There was a vending machine on the second floor, but it had a limited selection. The good snacks were all in the vending machines on the first floor, by the collaboration zones. Your back cracked all on its own as you plodded down the steps, and you let quiet groans with each one, until you finally landed on the first floor. There was a noticeable hum to the first floor, which only increased as you neared the two-thirds of the floor that was taken up by the collaboration zones. The vending machines were on the boundary of the bookshelves and the open spaces filled with tables and TV monitors and so many students.
Stopping in front of the drinks machine first, you mused over the options for a moment. Picking out your preferred seaweed-infused iced tea—an option you only saw sirens and the really hardcore human health-nuts drink—you then sidestepped to the snacks. It took you just a second to select a pack of mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. Neither peanut butter nor peanuts themselves were in the regular diet of a siren, but Renjun sometimes had the cookies on him for one of his werewolf friends and you’d picked up a taste for them. You would’ve never considered even trying them before hanging out with Renjun. Being an MCS major, you didn’t like to admit it, but your social circle wasn’t very diverse species-wise. You had your siren pod, and you were very happy sticking with them, thank you. Renjun, meanwhile, seemed to be best friends or friendly acquaintances with everything except a wyvern. You knew plenty about other species, after all, you excelled in class. But practical experience, you were finding you seemed to be lacking in. Maybe you should start your own Renjun-esque bucket list. Something to consider after finding Dr. Magic.
Taking a step back over to the drinks machine, you made the split-second decision to get Renjun’s favorite non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic drink. Honeydew melon soda. He had already said that you didn’t need to get him anything, but you wanted to.
“Hey, Y/N!” A cheerful voice greeted you, and you spun around, your two drinks and bag of sandwich cookies in hand.
You already knew who it was going to be, smiling at the familiar face of Ten. He was not only another siren, but specifically a siren from your pod, ocean blue scales and golden eyes matching your own. You threw your arms around his neck to give him a hug. “Ten! Ah, hey!”
“Are those… peanut butter?” He looked at the snack in your hand suspiciously.
“Uh, human study buddy,” you brushed off his concerns nonchalantly.
“Right, gotcha.”
The two of you usually hung out a lot—about as much as you and Renjun were together now, you figured—but since your spare time had been taken up with putting the search for Dr. Magic on full throttle, you were blanking on the last time you’d seen him. The beginning of the semester. Oh shit, you felt so guilty now.
The apology immediately started spilling out of your mouth, “Gods, I am so sorry we haven’t hung out, I wish I could say it was classes, or even research or something, but I’ve got this project. I can’t even really explain it without sounding crazy but—”
“Woah, Y/N, it’s okay,” Ten reassured you with a laugh, the same bright smile on his face as always. “I know how you get when you get really into one of your projects. Just let me know when you’ve finished it, and we can hang. Or if you ever need a break from it, too. It’s fine. If you weren’t a little crazy and obsessive, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”
He ruffled your hair with a snicker for good measure, and with your hands full of food, you couldn’t fight back, just huff and try to duck out of the way. But he was genuine about his sentiments, which really did make you feel better.
“Thanks, Ten. I’ll get in touch soon, I promise. I think I’m almost done!” You told him proudly.
“Soon in normal person time or soon in Y/N time?”
“Me time…”
“That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in six months then.”
“I’m not that bad!”
“Remember when I wondered aloud if sirens at the North and South poles were related, and you ended up spending our entire winter break researching that?”
“It only took four weeks!”
“You said it would be a quick search.”
“Exactly! People will dedicate their entire lives to that kind of research! I vastly condensed it!”
He shook his head fondly at the memory, elbowing you gently. “Get back to your project so you can finish early again and we can hang out soon, okay? And scoot, I’m trying to use the vending machine. You’re always in my way, I swear.”
You playfully pretended to block him, laughing as he nudged you out of the way with his shoulder. Starting back off towards the stairs, you turned around to give a cheery, “See you, Ten!”
“Bye, Y/N!” He waved to you with one hand, punching in the vending machine code with the other.
In better spirits having seen your friend, you traipsed up the stairs with extra pep in your step. Except Renjun wasn’t in your study room. Huh. Well, nothing in the rules saying a guy can’t take a bathroom break.
Setting his melon soda down next to his laptop, you plopped back down in your chair and kicked your feet up on the table. You ripped open your peanut butter sandwich cookies and cracked open your tea. The cookies were sweet, and while you didn’t have any oceanic reference for what peanut butter tasted like (you were told that “nutty” was a flavor profile unto itself, which wasn’t very helpful), you had decided that you liked it.
Waking your laptop back up, you saw that you had a new email, and shot up in your seat when you saw the subject.
dr_magic2303 replied to a post.
8 minutes ago.
Holy fucking shit, 8 minutes ago. While you were in the library? They could still be there. You looked around frantically. Where the fuck was Renjun when you needed him? Shooting to your feet, you snatched your phone from the table and rushed to throw the door open. Into Renjun’s face.
He stumbled back, holding his face as he let out a string of curses.
“Shit! Sorry, Junnie!” You didn’t sound all too sorry as you bounced on your feet, antsy to get a move on with your search. “No time for an ice pack though. Dr. Magic just replied to that dragon post we had bookmarked eight minutes ago. Which means that they’re probably still in the library! We need to go look for them right now!”
You took off in the direction of the desktop computers on this floor, keeping your voice at a fervent whisper-yell. The second floor computers were their favorite, according to the IPs.
“I know!” Renjun hurried after you, still clutching his nose. “I saw the email, and I tried to call you, but you left your phone in the study room.”
Checking your phone, you did in fact have a missed call from Renjun from 6 minutes ago. Well shit.
“So I went to go get you, but you weren’t at the vending machines, so I came back up to the study room and then nearly got my nose broken.”
You looked over your shoulder at him with wide eyes. “You went to get me? Not look for Dr. Magic on the freshest lead we’ve ever had? When they were quite possibly around the corner?”
The two of you had arrived at the desktops, and there was nobody in sight. One was awake, on the account login screen, the other two asleep on the ancient screensavers. You let out a heavy sigh, looking over at Renjun.
“I went to get you because this is your thing, not mine. I don’t know, I’d figured you’d want the satisfaction of taking the mask off them.”
You nodded. “Thanks, Junnie. Next time, though, just get them.”
“And how about you keep your phone on you?”
“So we both fucked it up.”
He gave you a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s still three more floors, Y/N.”
“Right, come on. You take the first, I’ll go up to the fourth since I smacked you with the door.”
The other floors were busts, and when you finally met back up with Renjun in your study room, you were glad to have your cold bottle of tea waiting for you. Knocking back a third of it in one go, you let out a noise of relief. Renjun had already opened the soda you’d gotten him.
“Thanks, by the way.” He held it up gratefully before taking a sip.
“You’re welcome.”
“And, I’m sorry. That I let Dr. Magic get away.”
“We don’t even know what floor they were posting from yet. They’ve could’ve been on the fourth floor and would’ve been gone by the time you got there anyway.” You brushed away his apologies. “Or they could’ve been on the second and been a psycho and you would’ve been a poor defenseless human all by yourself.”
“Oh, right, without my big strong siren to protect me.” He scoffed. “Woe is me.”
“Exactly,” you laughed, shutting your laptop. “Anyway, I’ll take a look at the IP later. Who knows, they might not have even been in the library. Might’ve been one of those rogue VPN posts.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He looked over you packing up your things. “You heading out?”
You nodded, zipping up your bag and tossing it onto your shoulder. “Prior arrangements. Sorry to cut this short, completely forgot about it when we agreed to meet up.”
“You’re so popular.”
“I know!” You mimicked his sarcastic tone, holding the door open with your foot as you stopped in the threshold. “Oh, hey— the midterm in MCS Linguistics. It’s my only one this semester, I’ve just got papers in all my other classes. Do you want to study together for that?”
“Yeah, sure, sure.”
“First session Saturday? My place for lunch?”
Renjun grimaced, presumably remembering your typical stock of pantry items tailored to a siren’s food preference. “I’ll pack a lunch.”
“Cool. See you in class, Junnie!” You waved to him cheerily as you took off for the faculty advisor meeting with Dr. Kwon that you were going to need to run across campus to be on time for.
“What is it?” Renjun set his book down where he was sat across your coffee table from you, an inquisitive eyebrow quirked up at you.
“What? Nothing.” You bit down on your lip, eyes boring holes into your computer screen.
“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve been staring at me ever since I got here, while also refusing to make eye contact with me. What? Something in my teeth? My hair look bad?”
Normally that would’ve made you chuckle—he was wearing a backwards baseball cap again today—but you just bit down harder on your lip and shook your head.
“Now you’re refusing to talk?” He scoffed. “Did you get hexed or something? I can’t believe you’re refusing to talk.”
“No, I can talk,” you insisted. “What uh, what’d you get for number four? On the review packet?”
“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on number four. Y/N, I’m almost done, and there’s twenty-five questions on this.”
“I’m not, I finished and went back, it was just one that I didn’t—”
But Renjun had grabbed your computer and turned the screen around, and you knew he could see that you had only done the first one. You buried your face in your hands, your skin prickling uncomfortably with shame. Your friend’s sigh was audible, but surprisingly, the next thing said wasn’t a string of derision. Instead, you heard the shuffle of clothes against your rug, and then he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee with you.
“Y/N, what’s going on with you today? Or, not today, the past couple days? You weren’t all there in class yesterday either. I left it alone then because it was Dr. Hyun, and nobody is ever all there for her classes but— what’s wrong?”
You slowly shook your head.
“You can’t tell me?”
You nodded.
“Okay. Is it bad? Like, dangerous?”
You shook your head.
“Alright, that’s good.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Is it family? Or, pod?”
You shook your head.
“School?”
You nodded.
“Alright, yeah. A lot going on. Is it like burn out?”
You shook your head.
“So, new stuff?”
You nodded.
He put an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I know you already had a lot. Getting this midterm over with will be one more thing off your checklist, right? That’ll open a spot for this new thing.”
With a sniffle, you nodded.
“Ah, but you’re not going to be any good studying like this.” He sighed again, dropping his arm from around your shoulders and his presence shifted away from your side. “Come on, quick field trip. Then we’ll come right back to the MCS Linguistics grind. Sound good?”
You finally took your hands from your face to look up. Renjun was standing right next to you, offering you a hand. You tentatively put yours in his, and he tightened his grip to pull you up to your feet.
The two of you ended up in a froyo shop down the street from your apartment. You gleefully picked a gummy shark off the top of your swirl, biting the head off first before tossing the rest in your mouth. Renjun lifted a meticulously curated spoonful of froyo and toppings to his mouth, satisfaction on his face as he tasted his perfect bite. You watched in amusement as he went to start creating his next scoop that had the precise ratio of yogurt and every single topping he had chosen—each partitioned to their own area atop the froyo. You decided to save your second big gummy shark for last, and took a big spoonful from the melting edge of your froyo.
“Why not me?” Renjun asked abruptly, his gaze still on the dessert in front of him.
“Huh?” Your jaw dropped. How could he have known what—
“You haven’t asked me if I’m Dr. Magic. Why not?”
Ah, Dr. Magic. Of course.
“You were my first guess, and the first person I ruled out back in like September,” you admitted with a shrug.
His head snapped up at that. “What? Why?”
“Because you’re such an arrogant, neurotic overachiever that you’d want credit if you did all this. You wouldn’t use an alias.”
“Oh. Huh.” Renjun looked between you and his froyo, a sheepish smile coming to his face. “Strangely, that makes me feel better.”
You watched a dollop of froyo fall off your spoon and plop back into your cup. “And I nabbed your IP address off your laptop the first time we hung out in January and double-checked it with every Dr. Magic post. Just in case.”
“When I was in the bathroom?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Of course you did.”
“Were you taking it as an insult to your intelligence that I had apparently not considered you as an option?”
“Maybe…”
You laughed, and laughed, and laughed. You laughed so hard your sides hurt, there were tears in your eyes, and you genuinely started wheezing. Renjun pretended to roll his eyes, but you saw the smile on his face and knew what he was thinking: success, no more mopey siren.
Once you had enough air back in your lungs to talk, you pointed your spoon at him firmly. “See? Just proving my point. You want people to know you’re smart.”
He crossed his arms. “As if you don’t.”
“Oh, I definitely do. But I know I’m like that.” You put a hand over your chest, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you?”
With your head screwed back on the normal amount, you and Renjun were able to dive back into your study session at your apartment. Several hours into it, though, you noticed Renjun blinking like way too much and constantly rubbing at his eyes. It was to the point where it was distracting for you.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” You asked bluntly.
That immediately burst the Renjun griping dam (which was really held together with tape and prayers anyway). “The screens hurt my eyes and human blue light glasses don’t do shit and no fairy has let me try theirs out. I know I should probably just take the plunge and buy them but I really can’t justify the price and—”
“Try mine.” You stood up, walking over to a display shelf on the other side of the living room.
“You have a pair? Why? Sirens don’t—”
“You collect magical experiences. I collect magical things.” You said nonchalantly, grabbing the pair of silver frames from where they sat between a phoenix feather (a gift) and a small wristwatch that would tell the correct time until it was put on, then it would be set on the time and date most significant to the wearer in that moment until it was removed. Walking back over to him, you held them out to him insistently, “Here, try them.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Renjun gingerly took them, sliding the arms over his ears and the frames onto the bridge of his nose. The pair you had was a little older, admittedly. You’d picked them up at a novelty shop, so they had some retro charm to them. An older style of frame, thicker lenses. But you thought it added a quaintness to their look. Especially on Renjun, he just looked downright adorable in them.
You sat back down to watch with your head in your hand as his brown eyes blinked from behind the thick lenses, and he looked around your living room like a newborn woodland animal. His face had already relaxed, and he turned his focus down to his laptop screen next, messing with the brightness up, then down. After that, he took out his phone, doing the same with that device.
“Well?” You prompted him, though you truly would’ve been content with watching him look around as if he’d been born colorblind and it were his first time seeing in color. Which, you had an enchanted pair for that too, but he wasn’t colorblind to your knowledge.
The human looked at you, a giddy smile stretching across his face. “They’re perfect! Thanks, Y/N!”
His hand reached up to take them off, but you stopped him.
“Keep them—”
“No, these had to be so expensive!” He protested immediately.
“Just for a week or so,” you finished your sentence pointedly. He was cute, but not that cute. “Make sure you really like them before you buy, okay? If you end up hating them, give them back. If you like them and buy your own pair, you can give them back whenever yours arrive in the mail.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it’s not like I’m using them. Superior siren eyesight.” You tapped next to one of your eyes for emphasis.
“Thanks for not rubbing it in or anything.”
Scrambling to dial Renjun’s number, you put your phone on speaker as you fervently flicked through all of your Dr. Magic notes. You’d been laying in bed binging some mindless baking competition to numb your brain from all the studying you’d been doing when an email notification had popped up alerting you to a new Dr. Magic post.
“Y/N?” Renjun answered the phone, sounding utterly confused. “What’s—”
“New Dr. Magic post. I ran the IP and they’re in our city!” You blurted out.
“Okay… Well we already knew that, right?”
“Yeah, but this is an IP in our city that they posted from at midnight on a Saturday. Not any of the school computers.” You hit CTRL + F, typing in the string of numbers to quickly cross reference it with your extensive list. “This could be their IP. Like, their actual one, from a personal computer.”
“Oh, yeah. Could be.”
“Can you give me a little more enthusiasm here, Junnie? Did I wake you up or something? It’s only—” You stopped like you’d just walked face-first into a brick wall, eyes locked on the search result.
“Yeah, only quarter after midnight,” he scoffed.
You clicked the next arrow on the search bar, but that was the only match. 1/1 results.
“Y/N?” Renjun called for your attention. “You there?”
You hung up.
Not wanting to lose your nerve, you pressed the doorbell over and over insistently. You could hear the complaining tone of the occupant before his words were even audible.
“Christ, I have neighbors, you know?” Renjun swung open the door with a scowl. The human was in a big, slouching hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was stuck up in a couple different directions, making you think he might’ve just woken up. Except behind him, you could see that his kitchen light was on, and a couple books and his laptop were open on his kitchen table. Late night studying. And the fact that you’d just talked to him on the phone fifteen minutes ago.
“Can I come in?” You requested, fidgeting with the sleeve of your cardigan.
His face immediately softened. “Yeah, of course.”
“Sorry to just show up like this,” you said as you took off your shoes by the front door before following him further into his apartment.
“It’s okay.” He stopped you two in the kitchen, picking up a colorful, patterned cardboard box. “Uh, I was just about to make a midnight snack. Pizza bites, you want some?”
“I… don’t think I’ve ever had them.”
“Perfect, you can try one now then.”
“Mm,” you made a non-committal noise, leaning against his kitchen counter to watch him pour out the frozen food onto a baking sheet.
The oven beeped, and he put the tray in before pressing a couple more buttons.
“So, I was thinking about the Dr. Magic stuff. Not the IP stuff but like… What even is your plan for when you do find Dr. Magic?” Renjun asked as he put the remaining pizza bites in his freezer.
“What do you mean?”
He leaned against the countertop across from you, though in the narrow space of his kitchen, you were practically knee-to-knee. “Like, say we finally find out who they are, we run up to them in the library or on campus or something. Then what? What are you going to do? What are you going to say? You’ve done all this, and I know why you had to. I get it. But, do you know what you’re going to say to them?”
“Probably something along the lines of…” You trailed off, giving an exasperated sigh. Dropping your chin to your chest, you groaned, “Gods, I don’t know.”
“Hey, that’s why you got me. So you can bounce ideas off someone, do a dry run.”
“I thought the words would just come to me, and now that I’m trying, I can’t—”
“It’s fine, Y/N. Let’s think about why you did this. I know it’s really hard to put into words. I mean, I know why you did. I get it. It’s that need to know. Not because you can, but because you have to, right? It’s curiosity in its rawest form. So obviously it’s not going to be some schmaltzy ‘haha I caught you’ spiel or anything.”
Looking up from the kitchen tile to Renjun’s eager features, you shook your head in disbelief. “You’re still helping me… when I know it’s you, Junnie.”
He tilted his head to the side, a comical noise of confusion coming from his mouth, “Uh?”
“I know it’s you, and you know that I know that it’s you.”
“You already ruled me out, because I’m an arrogant—”
“Junnie, you made a post on the forums from your laptop. No VPN. When you knew I was still tracking Dr. Magic’s IP on every post they made, and that I had your IP. That’s not a whoopsie that you make unless you want to be caught.”
The human crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise seemed entirely calm about being caught. “And you didn’t come in here guns blazing now that you’d caught me, either. Why?”
“I didn’t know how to say it. I mean, you’re right, I only did all this because I needed to know.”
“And now you know.”
“Why now? Why just give up now?” You asked with a shake of your head. “You started posting as Dr. Magic back in August, and I came to you in January. You knew everything I was doing; you could have cruised through the rest of the semester and I’d have never caught you.”
“You wanted to find out who it was by midterms. One less thing on your plate.”
“And now I know…”
“So how does it feel? Finally catching Dr. Magic?”
You wrinkled your nose and sighed, “Bit disappointing. I was right on my first guess.”
“And you immediately dismissed me out of hand for being an arrogant, neurotic overachiever on your first guess,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I didn’t really know you then. If I’d known you then like I know you now, I would’ve known as soon as I saw the first post.”
Renjun batted his eyes teasingly. “Aww, Y/N…”
“Doctor underscore magic two, three, zero, three? Twenty-three, oh-three? That’s your birthday, Junnie,” you deadpanned.
“Right.”
Pushing off the counter to stand up straight again, you said, “Anyway, you did help me find Dr. Magic. So, my turn.”
“Oh, no, you seriously don’t have to do that. I rigged the deal—”
“Yeah, about that.” You took a step forward. “How did you think that was going to end up for you, anyway? Were you going to sell somebody else out as Dr. Magic and hope I wasn’t going to talk to them? Spit in your mouth first and ask questions later?”
“I was thinking on my feet.”
“Maybe think laying down next time, Junnie.”
“Ouch.”
“Anyway, come on, you’ll want to sit down for this.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the living room.
“You don’t need to feel like you have to do this,” he reassured you.
Stopping the two of you in front of the couch, you turned to face him with a smirk. “Believe me when I say that it is going to be a treat unto itself for me to see you under the effects of siren venom. M’kay?”
Renjun’s surprise was evident on his face. “Oh.”
You stepped closer to him, delicately placing a hand on his chest. “Now unless you want me to literally spit in your mouth, I’m going to have to kiss you, to administer the venom.”
His eyes flicked between the hand you had on his chest and your face as he replied. “I’m okay with that—the kissing—if you are.”
“Renjun, I’ve been ready to eat you alive since you said the words ‘I want to experience siren venom for science’ to me.”
“Really?”
“Mhm. So why don’t you sit?” You guided him with the hand against his chest to sit back against his couch. Swinging one leg over his hips, then the other, you lowered yourself onto his lap. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, tentatively settling his hands on your thighs. “Is this okay?”
“More than.” You smiled, looping your arms around his neck. “Now, a couple things, before we get started.”
“We haven’t started?”
“You’ll know it when we do.”
“Right.”
“I know you think you know what siren venom is like, but whatever scientific articles you’ve read, or documentaries you’ve watched, or slides you’ve studied under microscopes in lab, cannot actually prepare you for what it’s like. Which, I imagine is why you want to experience it for yourself.” You smirked down at him as you watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with a gulp. “So before I actually dose you up with it, I need you to tell me what you’re actually okay with doing and what you’re not. Because once you get my venom in you, you’re going to want to let me do anything and everything to you, up to and including kill you, remember?”
“Well that’s off the table.”
“Good to know,” you snorted, running a fingernail down the nape of his neck. You felt a shudder go through him. “Is this okay?”
“Y-Yeah.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. You halted your motions to let him think, and watched in amusement as he blinked his mind clear.
Once enough time had passed, you prompted him, “So?”
“I think just kissing,” Renjun answered. “Like, making out, or whatever. If you want…”
You snickered. “What part of ‘eat you alive’ was I unclear about?”
“The ‘eat’ part, actually. How literal is that?”
“Guess you’ll find out,” you teased. Then, you focused again as you sat back a little. “Okay, making out. Making out means different things to different people. So… we know kissing’s on the table. Tongue?”
“Yeah.”
“Teeth?”
“Where?”
“Waist up. You got somewhere you don’t want them?”
He took a moment to think about this. Then shook his head. “No. You can use them. Anywhere.”
“Same goes for you. Hickies?”
“Giving or receiving?”
“Both. You first.”
“Both are okay. You?”
You were already zeroing in on his neck and a small part of his collarbone peeking out from under his hoodie. “Same. Touching over clothes?”
“Okay, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too much with the venom…”
“Oh, Junnie, everything is going to be too much.” You grinned down at him.
His breathing had picked up pace as the two of you were talking. “You? The touching?”
“Good. Great. Touching under clothes?”
Renjun squirmed underneath you, but maintained your eye contact. “Just under my shirt.”
“Smart boy,” you said approvingly. “Me too.”
“Is that it?” He asked quietly, eyes now flicking down to your lips.
“I think so…” You looked around the room to buy a couple extra seconds of thinking time. When you hadn’t come up with anything else, you looked down at the human below you once more. “Ready, Renjun?”
“Yes.”
You took one final look over him like this, how much he already wanted you before he’d even gotten any of your venom in him, and dragged the tip of your tongue over your bottom lip instinctually. His heartrate jumped, and you wondered if it was fear—if the motion had reminded him perhaps of a hungry predator—or need. Or maybe a bit of both.
But you couldn’t tease him nor yourself any longer, swooping down to connect your mouths. You started off with just a couple light, closed-mouth kisses, to ease him into it. You heard him inhale quickly through his nose, his grip on your thighs tightening minutely. Swiping your tongue across the seal of his lips, you were delighted when he immediately parted his mouth in response, his tongue seeking yours out. You hummed contentedly into his mouth as you started stroking a fingernail down the back of his neck again. At the same time, your venom was beginning to mix in with your saliva, being passed onto Renjun.
Once his jaw started going slack in the kiss, and his hands slowly slid off your legs entirely to rest lamely at his side, you deemed him plenty dosed up. Consciously, you blocked off your venom glands once more. When one particularly drawn-out scratch down the back of his neck finally elicited a noise from him, an involuntary whine, you felt something in you snap. You needed more of that.
“So this is what siren venom feels like…” He mumbled breathily, letting his head loll back against the couch cushion as you kissed a path down his jawline and neck. When you felt his breath hitch in his throat over one particular spot, you decided to take your time there, sucking and nipping a mark into his skin.
When humans were… locked in a lover’s embrace, they let off a certain perfume distinguishable only to sirens—which was what made them the favored prey of sirens for so long. A human under the influence of siren venom? Delectable. And every human’s was unique too, so Renjun under the influence of your venom? Absolutely addictive.
With each kiss you stole from his lips, every nip you left on his neck that you then soothed over with your tongue, you got another taste of it. A sweetness that came with a bite, like ginger candy.
Renjun was still talking, though, his vocal cords vibrating under your lips. “My-My heart’s beating so fast, and I’m so warm—that’s so the ocean water doesn’t feel cold, of course—”
“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.
“Why?”
“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”
“Oh. Right.” He closed his mouth, looking up at you with glassy eyes, waiting. Gods, he was so pretty like this.
You crashed your lips back on his, a mess of teeth and lips and tongue as he tried to keep up with you. But you knew that your venom was in full effect now, every single one of his nerve endings was approximately three and half times more sensitive. So you were sure it was all a little overwhelming. But he was definitely trying his best, kissing sloppily into your mouth with hungry, desperate whines.
Pulling him back off with your grip in his hair, you traced a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip, cooing over how fucked-out he looked like this. “Oh, baby. Oh, poor Junnie. What’s wrong? Can’t even kiss me properly because it feels too good? Baby’s overwhelmed with just a little bit of kissing?”
He opened his mouth wider, darting the tip of his tongue out to brush against the pad of your thumb. You pushed the finger in his mouth, groaning as he immediately closed his lips around it. “Gods, you’re perfect, Junnie.”
Taking your thumb back out of his mouth just to grab his chin with the same wet digit, you attacked his lips with yours again. Ginger candy. His hands that had been lamely resting at his sides the entire time now fumbled at something in the area where your hips met.
“What? What are you trying to do, baby?” You asked, leaning back to look down. He was grabbing at the hem of his hoodie, unsuccessfully yanking it up towards his head as part of it was stuck under one of your thighs.
“‘m too hot. Please…” He panted, dropping it as he looked up at you pleadingly.
You nodded slowly in understanding, knowing that one of the effects of the siren venom was an increase in body temperature, not to mention what you two were just doing. The collar of another shirt was visible underneath the sweatshirt. “Okay, Junnie, we can take your hoodie off. But only the hoodie. Your other clothes are staying on, understood?”
He nodded quickly, hips bucking up against you. Sweat was beading up on his forehead, his hair getting stuck to the damp skin. You shifted back on his lap so that none of the sweatshirt was under you anymore, grabbing the hem and reaching behind him to yank up from underneath him as well.
“Sit forward for me, baby?” You requested in his ear sweetly.
Renjun obliged as best he could, leaning forward to get his back and shoulders off the couch. You pulled the hoodie up over his head, tossing it off to the side, leaving him in a black t-shirt that certainly couldn’t be helping much either. But having that heavy layer off seemed to provide some relief for him, as he let out a sigh, falling back against the furniture again.
You giggled as you settled back into the crux of his lap again, lacing your fingers together behind his neck. “Is that better now, Junnie?”
He shook his head, and you arched an eyebrow curiously.
“Oh? What’s wrong, then?”
Renjun tugged gently at your cardigan where it had shrugged down to show one of your shoulders. “Please?”
Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, you thought this over. You had a tank top on under the cardigan, and both of you were still wearing everything else. Not to mention that you were starting to get a bit warm too. Sirens ran naturally cooler than humans, so you were sure that to him, you felt practically refreshing right now, but you honestly were a bit hot for a siren’s tastes.
Giving a contemplative hum first, you finally relented, “Alright, Junnie. But just my sweater. Everything else stays on, because we didn’t talk about that before the venom, do you understand?”
He rushed to strip you of the knit cardigan, his mouth following his hands’ path down your skin. First on your shoulder, then down your arm. You let the garment drop on the floor behind you as he kissed back up along your shoulder, then over the fabric of your tank top until he got to your collarbone, and finally the hollow of your throat. Fondly stroking the back of his head, the pleased purr that had started in your chest turned into a surprised moan when he licked a long stripe up your throat.
Holding his face in your hands so that your noses brushed, and your lips barely ghosted over each other, you let your breaths mingle in the meager space afforded. Renjun ended your little anticipation game quickly, kissing you tongue-first, and you kissed him back just as eagerly, sucking on his tongue with lewd, wet noises. He moaned into your mouth, his hands grabbing at your waist for purchase first, then slipping and curling into the material of your shirt, bunching it in his fists.
Slowing the pace of your kisses, you eventually sat back, appraising the state he was in. You affectionately ran a hand through his hair as you took in his blown pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and pink cheeks. “Junnie? How are you feeling? Need a break?”
You hadn’t given him another dose of venom since the initial one, which wasn’t very large to begin with. But this was his first time experiencing it, so you wanted to check in. He should be just past the peak of it by now, starting to come down but for all intents and purposes still very much intoxicated. Siren venom wasn’t meant to last very long, after all, it took an adult human less than a minute to drown.
“Need you…” He insisted, arching up towards you.
Indulging him in one, two more feverish kisses, you pulled away once again. “I know, baby. And you’ve been doing so good for me. So I need you to tell me if you need a break. Okay?”
“’kay.” He agreed before you sealed your mouth over his again.
Kissing down from his mouth to just under his jaw, at the same time you trailed a finger down the center of his front until it got to the hem of his t-shirt.
He nodded fervently before you could say or do anything more. “Please… please…”
“Shh, shh, shh,” you quieted him down gently. “Doing so good for me, Junnie. The best.”
You slipped your hands under his shirt, just to stroke his waist. His muscles tensed under your touch, and he let out a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed at your thighs again, but you couldn’t tell if it was an attempt at reciprocity or to have something sturdier to ground himself to than your flimsy tank top. The corner of your lips quirked up as you pressed a couple more kisses down his neck to hover your lips over his pulse point, content to start a new mark there as your hands continued to explore under his shirt. It was when you gently raked your nails down over his pecs that you got the loudest moan out of him yet, and you groaned in response.
“Gods, you’re perfect,” you nuzzled your nose into Renjun’s neck, then pressed a couple relatively chaste pecks to his cheek. “Just perfect…”
Taking your hands back out from his shirt, you silenced his whine at the loss of contact by slotting your lips together once more. You cupped his face with one hand, using the other to take one of his hands off your leg and lace them together, palm to palm. This seemed to make him content once more, especially when you brought your connected hands up to the back of the couch, pinning his behind his head. He squirmed under you, letting out a familiar noise of pleasure into your mouth and squeezing your hand tightly.
You knew the venom was well and truly starting to wear off when Renjun began keeping pace with your slow, lazy kisses, his mouth not as sloppy but no less delightful as it moved in tandem with yours. The thumb of the remaining hand on your thigh started to stroke over your skin, and the hand that you were holding gave yours a gentle squeeze. You gave him one, two last lingering kisses, drinking in the dwindling taste of ginger candy while you could, Renjun matching you beat for beat.
Unlacing your fingers and dropping your hand from his face, you drew back from him. Before you could say anything, though, Renjun grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in for one more kiss, sinking his teeth into your already tender, over-kissed bottom lip. You gasped into his mouth, which gave him the perfect opportunity to intertwine his tongue with yours again on his apparent mission to try to kiss the breath from you. A nigh impossible task for a human to do to a siren, but it definitely felt like he was succeeding. He was crushing his lips against yours so hard you were worried about him drawing blood—not because you would mind the pain, but for fear of his safety if he got a direct hit of your blood in his mouth.
In the back of your mind, you were desperately trying to remember if you had maybe accidentally opened your venom glands a second time later on, but just drew a blank. That wasn’t something you did unaware, it wasn’t automatic, it had to be done on purpose. Then, for a brief moment, you were worried about secondary wave syndrome—some humans break down siren venom in two phases instead of one, and the second one almost always kills them if they’re not brought to a human medical doctor for treatment—and you started running through the symptoms as well as the nearest human emergency rooms in your mind. Burst capillaries in the eyes, refusal of food and water, the hospital three blocks over should have an ER, right? But the kiss didn’t feel like when he’d been intoxicated on your venom before, this one felt deliberate, in control. He was in control. You let out a small moan at the thought, and Renjun’s lone hand on your thigh tightened in response.
Once he finally let you go, you both sat there in silence for a good few seconds, you still on his lap. You stared extra hard at the whites of his eyes. They looked normal. He seemed… normal.
It was rare for either of you to be speechless, much less the both of you.
“Well…” you broke the silence. “That was siren venom. You should drink some water. Stay right here, I’ll get it.”
You climbed off of him, heading into his kitchen. Looking at the oven, you were wondering how the timer hadn’t gone off in that entire time when you saw that it wasn’t on. The words ‘TIMER SET?’ were flashing on the screen at you, and the preheat hadn’t been started either. The pizza rolls had just been slowly defrosting on a pan in the cold oven. You couldn’t help but laugh, reaching into his fridge for his Brita filter then securing a couple cups from the cabinets.
Walking back into the living room, you handed the human his cup of water and remained standing as you took a sip of yours.
“You didn’t start the oven, for your pizza rolls,” you informed him quietly.
“Wh— oh, shit,” Renjun groaned, tipping his head back. “I guess I don’t get to give you your first pizza roll tonight.”
“That’s okay.” You dropped onto the couch next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
“So… that was siren venom,” he breathed out, then took a long gulp of his water. Definitely not second wave syndrome.
“That was siren venom,” you confirmed with a laugh, fondly brushing a piece of sweaty hair off his forehead.
“You were right… I was not prepared,” he admitted with a laugh, taking another drink.
“So do you think you would’ve let me kill you?”
“Yeah. I would’ve given you my credit card info, bank password, spilled all of my friends’ worst secrets, let you kill me, killed someone else if you asked me. God, that was…” He said with wide eyes, shaking his head. But there was a familiar glint in his eye as a smile cracked across his face, “Incredible.”
“Glad you think so,” you giggled, patting his chest. “Now don’t become a venom junkie, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if you did and it was my fault.”
“I won’t. Not really what I meant anyway.”
You grinned slyly at what he seemed to be implying, that it might not have just been the siren venom, but that it was you and your venom that made it so incredible. Like how every human had a slightly different essence, every siren had a unique chemical signature in their venom. It’s why using it non-consensually nowadays would be extremely stupid (as well as just an immoral thing to do and also a crime)—it can be matched to the siren in a lab like DNA. In addition, anecdotally, every siren’s venom was said to produce a slightly different high, but no mass studies had backed that up. You were inclined to believe the stories, though.
Renjun was still a bit hazy, though, still riding the high of the venom, so you decided to tuck a conversation like that away for another time.
“So why did you pick Magical Creatures Studies? Other than you’re insane?” You redirected the topic to a more neutral one.
Renjun didn’t seem put off at all about this jump. “When I was a kid, my family traveled around a bunch, for my dad’s job. I got to meet a lot of different kinds of beings, some of them became my best friends, and I never wanted to stop learning about it all.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Government job,” he answered, suddenly interested in picking at his nails.
You furrowed your brow thoughtfully. “Wait a minute… Huang Renjun. As in, your father is Ambassador Huang? That we’ve had to write papers on in class?”
Ambassador Huang was the first human ambassador sent on diplomacy trips to outside nations of magical creatures post-integration. His trips had largely been considered a monumental success, and credited as a big driver behind the huge uptick of immigration that your city has been seeing from outlying areas in the past couple decades. You’d hardly gotten through a single contemporary MCS class without directly learning about him or at least hearing his name. And you’d apparently been going to school with his son for four years and just pumped said son full of your venom and made out with him while he was high on your venom.
“Yeah…”
“Dude! What the hell? You didn’t think to mention that at some point?” You asked incredulously.
“And sound like some uppity nepo kid bragging about my dad? No thanks,” Renjun snorted.
“Yeah, maybe not like day one but like… I don’t know, before I used my venom on you!” You nudged his arm teasingly.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just venom-ed Ambassador Huang’s son!”
“Oh my God, could you not call me that?” He snapped at you. “This is why I don’t tell people! Because now I don’t have a name anymore, I’m just Ambassador Huang’s son.”
You immediately realized your mistake, your stomach dropping as you heard the hurt in his words. “Renjun, I’m—”
“Just go.” He demanded, standing up from the couch and putting distance between you two again. “We both got what we wanted, right? You found out who Dr. Magic was, and I experienced siren venom. That’s all this was, so you can go. You don’t owe me anything else.”
You clenched your jaw, setting your cup on the end table beside the couch. Picking up your cardigan from the floor with as much dignity as you could, you pulled it back on. Neither of you said another word as he watched you stalk over to the front door, shove your shoes back on, throw the door open, and slam it closed behind you.
Drumming your fingertips along your keyboard, you squinted at the flashcards on your screen. You were in a sour mood, which had persisted ever since you’d left Renjun’s last night feeling used.
Ten was next to you at your picnic table outside the student union, finishing up a pencil portrait sketch of one of his other friends—one of the CompSci majors you’d paid to write your browser extension, actually. Dejun, a dragon, whose slit pupils, many bejeweled earrings, and a singular fang poking out from under his top lip featured prominently in the portrait. The sketch was part of Ten’s midterm portfolio check-in for one of his classes. Midterms were literally this week. Like, right now. You forced your sharp teeth further into the wooden pencil in your mouth.
“You’re going to ruin your cuspids like that, Y/N,” Ten chastised you calmly, rubbing at a line with the pad of his ring finger to smudge it before flipping his own non-mangled pencil around and continuing to sketch with the graphite.
“I’ll grow another set,” you grumbled, but took the writing utensil out of your mouth nevertheless.
“And have no teeth in the meantime. Real sexy siren stuff. Sure to lure all the hotties to their deaths looking like GamGam missing her dentures.”
“Shut up!” You shoved his head away, earning a loud peal of laughter from your friend. “As if you’ve been pulling anybody yourself. You’re literally a siren art major covered in tattoos that he designed himself, more piercings than a dragon, including nipple rings, and you haven’t been on a date in… what, almost a year?”
“So we’re both disappointments to the good siren name, huh?” He held up his hands in surrender, still grinning. “Just a couple of poor, celibate sirens doomed to be disgraces to their species forever…”
“Can you not yell that to the entire courtyard, dude?”
“What? Not announce very loudly that you haven’t been with anybody in exactly four—”
You lunged to cover his mouth before he could publicize precisely how long it’s been since you’d hooked up with someone. Ten immediately broke down into laughs behind your hand that was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking even as you smacked him on the back of the head with your other hand.
“Gods, what is wrong with you?” You hissed at him. “You’re a menace to society. And me.”
When you’d finally let go of his face, he said through a couple more chuckles, “Hey, you could easily do it back to me.”
“Why would I want to do that? And the fact that you’re suggesting it makes me think that you want me to do that, which makes me want to do it even less. You freak.”
Before your podmate could respond, you caught sight of a figure approaching your table head-on. Setting your jaw, your body immediately tensed. There was no mistake, Huang Renjun was walking straight towards you. Ten seemed to have noticed the shift in your body language and mood, as he didn’t say anything further, quietly going back to his sketchbook as you watched Renjun get nearer and nearer.
“Y/N,” he said your name quietly, stopping not quite at the end of the table beside you, but next to the end of the bench across from you.
“What do you want from me now, Renjun?” You replied bitterly, pretending to return your hands to your keyboard as if you were going to refocus on your studies.
“Uhm, to talk, I guess?”
Ten interjected, “Do you guys need a second? I can go—”
You held him in place with a hand around his wrist, your voice curt, “No, Ten. Stay. This will be short.”
Your friend lowered himself back down into his seat.
You then set your hard gaze on Renjun. The marks you had left on his neck were still visible above the collar of his t-shirt. Moving your eyes from that to his face, you cocked your head to the side. “What’s in it for me? You established that our relationship is purely transactional, remember? We apparently just use each other. You scratch my back, I spit in your mouth, quid pro quo.”
“Okay, I’m going now,” Ten declared, wrenching his arm from your grasp to grab his sketchbook, pencils, and backpack before taking off.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t see you like that at all, I just... I got defensive and snapped. It’s not an excuse, but still, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” Renjun shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but you could see the genuine remorse on his features.
You breathed in, then out.
“I’m sorry too,” you sighed, letting your voice relax back to the natural softness that it held around Renjun. “You’re your own person, aside from just ‘Ambassador Huang’s son.’ I’m sorry for treating you like anything other than Renjun.”
“It’s not that I’m not super proud to be his son or anything, I think he’s really awesome. He was my hero growing up; still is. I mean, I’m going into the same field as him. Kind of. You know? It’s just because we’re going to be doing the same kind of thing, I want to be able to be looked at for what I do. Good or bad.”
“Bad? You plan on using your degree for evil, Renjun?” You teased, scooting over on the bench seat to take Ten’s previous spot and freeing up a place for Renjun to scoot in beside you.
“I could,” he played along, gladly taking the seat offered.
The two of you made eye contact, then burst into laughter at the same time.
“What?” He questioned in mock offense. “I think I’d make a great evil dictator, personally. You don’t think so?”
“Not at all, you’d be great at it.”
“Thank you. My friends don’t take my threats so seriously.”
“Which will ultimately be their downfall.”
Renjun looked back out at the campus in front of you two, his voice turning serious again, “But, seriously, I mean, I don’t want people having all these lofty expectations for me and then be disappointed when I don’t change the whole world, nor do I want them making things easy for me because they know my dad.”
“That’s fair. Unattainable, but fair to wish for,” you nodded in understanding.
“Ugh...” He slumped forward, dropping his head into his arms atop the table.
“Look, Renjun…” You rested one hand on his arm as the other rubbed up and down his back supportively. “You can’t change who your dad is, and you said it yourself, it’s not like you’re ashamed of him either. So don’t brag, and don’t be a dick when somebody brings him up either. Just do your best to show people who Huang Renjun is. And if they still don’t get it, that’s their loss. Because I already know him, and I think he’s pretty cool.”
Renjun sat back up to look you in the face with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “You’re such a cheeseball. Aren’t sirens supposed to be alluring and enchanting?”
“Shut up! I will drown you! See how alluring I am when you’re under a siren call,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.
“I’m kidding.” He grinned at you, nudging your shoulder with his. “That really did make me feel better, thank you, Y/N.”
You smiled back. “You’re welcome, Renjun.”
The two of you kept smiling at each other for a moment before he broke the eye contact, looking down at his hands then shifting his gaze back to the courtyard.
“Uhm, while we’re airing stuff out about last night...” He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Yeah, Junnie?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as his cheeks started flushing.
“I don’t think I ever said thank you. I kind of popped off on you right after... everything. But thank you, for taking care of me before, during, and after. It didn’t even occur to me to talk about what we could and couldn’t do beforehand. Thank you for that, and for getting me the water. And... all of it in between...” His ears were bright red too at this point, but he managed to look you in the eye as he gave you his genuine gratitude.
You nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you felt cared for during all of it. In addition to, you know, everything else you felt.”
“Mm, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
Studying his face curiously, you said, “You look like you want to ask me something else.”
“Well, I feel like you still weren’t very clear on the ‘eat me alive’ thing.”
You rolled your eyes. “Gods, Junnie, I’m not going to actually eat you—”
“I mean...” Renjun took a deep breath. “I kind of always feel like I’ve got a little bit of siren venom in me when I’m around you, Y/N. My heart races, and my skin is warm, and everything is just better when I’m with you. I want to see you when you’re not around, and when things are hard for you, I want to make everything better. I like you, and between the Dr. Magic deal, and our stupid academic rivalry, and what we did last night, I don’t know what I am to you, but that’s how I feel.”
If someone had told freshman you that Huang Renjun would ever say words like that to you, you’d have laughed in their face to the point of tears— or slapped them. And yet, in that moment, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. It was the most natural, beautiful, delightful, perfect thing that could’ve happened. Just like you leaning over to give him a modest, near-demure kiss on the cheek, absolutely beaming at him as you pulled back.
“I like you too, Renjun,” you admitted.
His eyes went wide before a broad, tender smile spread across his features and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. He let out a drawn-out sigh of relief, “Ohh, that’s one weight off my chest for this week.”
You laughed in agreement. “Me too. Actually makes everything feel lighter.”
“Yeah, it does,” he said, squeezing your shoulder. “So how much do I owe you?”
“What?”
“You said you were going to invoice Dr. Magic. For the browser extension, and the color copies, and whatever else. How much do I owe you?”
You tapped a finger against your chin, pretending to think before a smirk pulled across your lips. “Mm, should be exactly the price of one nice dinner and a movie.”
“Dinner and a movie? Just how many copies were you making?” He asked with a chuckle and a shake of his head.
“A nice dinner,” you reiterated. “I paid those CompSci majors fairly for their time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Friday night after your last midterm, you were knocking on Huang Renjun’s door. The two of you had seen each other this week for your Linguistics in MCS class, but had been utterly locked into academic mode and hadn’t met up aside from that. So, per his invite, you were here in your “midterms best”— i.e., the pajamas you had been wearing at your own apartment since submitting your last mid-semester draft earlier today. You’d been told this wasn’t going to be a fancy affair.
Judging by the pajamas that Renjun had also answered the door wearing—giving you vivid déjà vu to the last time you were here—you were dressed appropriately for the occasion. He led you in by the hand, informing you there was something he wanted to show you in the kitchen.
You came to a stop in front of a plate piled high with small, pillow-shaped pieces of dough, some with bursts of red sauce leaking out of them. You couldn’t help but let out a sputtering laugh. “Pizza rolls? Did midterms scramble the egg on your face so bad that you missed the part where I said nice dinner?”
You might not have ever eaten pizza rolls, but you knew what section of the grocery store they came from.
“I can’t even tell what that was supposed to be… You’re so beautiful…” He was staring at you with a look of pure adoration, and surprised you by giving you a fleeting peck on the cheek, gone as soon as you’d realized what he was doing. Your hand instinctually came up to brush at your skin, almost in disbelief, as he went back to explaining his plans for tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t get to give you your first pizza roll the other night, and I figured that the last thing you actually wanted right after midterms week was to go out to some hoity toity place and be out at the movie theater really late, right? So, I’ve got pizza rolls, peanut butter cookies, your seaweed tea, and like way more snacks and candy and stuff. So we can chill and watch whatever movies you want tonight, unwind from midterms. And then next weekend, we’ll do your nice dinner and go to the movie theater. Think of it as an IOU.”
A fond smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you nodded your approval. “Mmm… you’re right. This is great, Junnie. Thank you.”
Set up on Renjun’s couch with the assortment of snacks—pizza rolls included—and your first movie chosen, you settled in next to him, knee to knee, under the same blanket as the two of you ate. You decided that pizza rolls weren’t that bad (you still liked peanut butter sandwich cookies better), convinced Renjun to try some of your ocean flakes again—a favorite snack of sirens, which he’d already tasted on one occasion at a Dr. Magic hunting session and hated—to similar results, and finished off a bottle of seaweed-infused tea by the time the first movie was about a third of the way done. At this point, you were pretty satiated food-wise, and set your empty drink bottle on the coffee table to sit back on the couch.
Linking your arm with Renjun’s, you rested your head on his shoulder as he was still finishing up his plate of pizza rolls. “That was good, Renjun. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I call dibs on little spoon first, by the way.”
“Damn.”
Once he was done eating as well, you laid down to eagerly take your promised place as little spoon. Renjun stayed partially propped up against the arm of the couch so he could see the TV as you were nestled back against his chest, one of his arms slung over your waist. Your fingers played with his under the blanket absentmindedly as you got used to your new place, with him, in his arms.
“Renjun?” You said into the quiet. The only noises were coming from the TV. The movie was nearly done, just a couple little resolving scenes after the climax left. You’d seen it plenty of times before—both of you had, it was a favorite that you’d discovered you two shared earlier in the semester—which was why you’d picked it, an easy watch that you both liked. But nothing that required your full attention, so you could talk or miss scenes if you wanted.
“Yeah?” He responded just as softly.
“This is really nice. Hanging out, just us. No school, no Dr. Magic.”
“I know. Almost doesn’t feel real.”
“What? That we’re hanging out without trying to kill each other?”
He let out a couple laughs, catching your hand that had been playing with his under the blanket and lacing your fingers together. “I think there’s definitely some people that would be shocked to see us right now. But I meant more-so that we don’t have any schoolwork to do right now, and that the whole Dr. Magic thing is finally over. Other than the dinner that I owe you.”
“Oh… I owe you… I-O-U…” you sounded the words and letters out slowly. “I get it now.”
“God, you’re perfect,” he sighed dreamily, brushing your hair away from your face to press two kisses to your temple in quick succession.
You turned over to face him to properly protest, “Hey, I didn’t grow up around humans, you know that, right? I just came here to go to school! I moved here like, two weeks before our first day of freshman year—”
“I’m not making fun of you, Y/N!” He promised, sandwiching your hand between both of his and squeezing it tightly. “I respect how difficult it must have been for you to acclimate to the new culture and city when you moved, and so suddenly, on top of starting school. I just love y- love when you do that. Genuinely, I’m so charmed by it. Endeared. Bewitched. Whatever word you want to use. It’s something I never noticed until this semester, when we started doing the Dr. Magic stuff together. Despite knowing you for so long, in the department, in classes.”
“You know what I never knew about you before this semester, Junnie?”
“What?”
“That you were such a softie,” you snickered fondly. “I thought you were all textbooks and GPA and flashcards and whatever.”
The human ducked his head bashfully. “It’s something I’ve been working on this year.”
“Between this and Dr. Magic, I think you’ve been doing pretty well.”
“Thanks.”
“So, why did you do it, Junnie?” You asked curiously. “Not be a softie, I mean, but…”
“What? Be Dr. Magic?” He clarified, to which you nodded. “I didn’t mean to make a persona like that, really. I had to pick a screenname, and the guys had jokingly called me that a couple times when I helped them out with some problems. That’s all.”
“I know why you started the account. Knowledge. That’s also why you didn’t get the credit. You just needed to know. Though, the story behind the name is cute,” you pinched his cheek, and he tried to deter your hand with his shoulder half-heartedly. “I mean more like, why were you hiding your IP and using VPNs and stuff before you even knew that I was trying to track you down? In the fall.”
“I made the first couple posts from the school computers just because I like to do my work there, I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Then I pictured what I’d do if I found someone posting like I was on the forums. And I would’ve tried to find out who they were. So I started covering my tracks a bit more intentionally after that. Didn’t want any groupies rolling up on me.” He pinched your side teasingly with the last sentence, and you slapped his hand away with an eye roll.
“Oh shut up!” You scoffed, ignoring his hands as he tried to pull you back towards him again.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m sorry,” he apologized through his chuckles. “If anything I’m your groupie, I swear. Your number one fan from the moment you showed me your conspiracy board.”
“Mm, fine.” You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you once more. “Glad we got that cleared up.”
Renjun shifted to lay on his back, and you easily followed the move to snuggle in mostly on top of him, resting your head in the crook of his neck and your hand on his waist, fingers innocently smoothing over a patch of skin above his hipbone where his shirt had ridden up. It sounded like the credits were on by now, but you didn’t really care about picking another movie as Renjun hummed along to the familiar song that played over the scrolling names. You’d sing along too, if you were alone at your own place. But now you didn’t dare even hum like the human with you for fear of what it could do to him. Renjun’s voice was plenty lovely enough though, even just this casual little bit humming. You’d see if you could get him to sing for you properly one of these days. If an opportunity came before graduation. Who knew what your days would even look like before then.
Gods, graduation. You felt like you could shrivel up and die just thinking about it. Not to mention that you hadn’t even told Renjun that you’d—
“Hey. What are you thinking about?” He suddenly asked, his disapproving tone clear.
You gulped. “How could you tell I was thinking about something?”
“For one, you’ve got your bad thinking face on.” He pinched your bottom lip. “You pout. It’s very dramatic. You look very concerned.”
“I have different thinking faces?”
“Yeah, you look different when you’re studying. I’ve seen you do plenty of that to know the difference. And you’ve got a third face when you’re contemplating. Usually you do that one when you’re looking at menus.”
“I didn’t know I was apparently an open book.” You covered your face with your hands in embarrassment.
“It’s cute, Y/N. You’ve got a cute face, and you make cute facial expressions with it, don’t cover it up.” He gingerly grabbed your hands to encourage you to take them off. “Except I am worried about what’s making you make your bad thinking face right now. What’s wrong?”
With a sigh, you pushed up into a sitting position. Renjun followed your lead curiously, a thoughtful frown on his own features as he watched you pull your knees to your chest.
“Renjun, I need to tell you something.”
He regarded you with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Okay… go for it.”
Nervously, you smoothed out some wrinkles in your pajama pants as you confessed, “Uhm, Dr. Kwon asked me to carry the banner at commencement. I said yes.”
“I knew that.”
“What?” You looked up at him in disbelief.
“Well, since it was midterms already, I figured that if they’d picked me, they would have asked me by now and since they hadn’t, then they must have picked you. I was just waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you… Congrats.” Renjun grinned brightly at you, reaching out to rest his hand on your arm.
“You’re not upset?” You asked trepidly.
“We’re not petty little freshmen anymore, Y/N. No, I’m not upset. I’m proud of you, you deserve it.”
“So did you.”
“Not any more than you did.” He shook his head firmly. “So would you just accept my congrats already?”
You gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank you…”
“There we go.”
“This is what I was so freaked about… when we went to get froyo.”
“You were afraid of me being mad at you for being picked to carry the banner?” Renjun asked incredulously.
“I didn’t know how to tell you!” You defended yourself. “And now I have to do the commencement practices, on top of senior capstone and my extracurriculars…”
He wrinkled his nose. “Ew, commencement practices. So glad I didn’t get picked now, actually.”
“And that was so convincing, Junnie.”
“You remember what you said to me when we got froyo?”
Scrunching your face up, you struggled to think back to the exact conversation you had that day—you’d been really stressed. “Uh, ‘exactly two gummy sharks on mine please?’”
“Well, yeah, your hyper-specific froyo order—”
“Throwing stones at black kettles much?” You teased.
“Excuse me?” Renjun’s eyes went wide.
“Is that not—? I really thought I got it that time.”
“Did you mean to say ‘throwing stones in glass houses’ and/or ‘the pot calling the kettle black?’”
“…Yes.”
He turned very serious as he went to tenderly cradle your face in his hands. “I’m going to kiss you in like two seconds after I finish what I was saying, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” you agreed weakly, wishing very much that he’d just do it now instead of making you wait. He then let your face go.
“When we were talking about wanting people to know that we’re smart,” Renjun clarified. “You said that we’re both like that, and you knew that you were like that. And then you asked me if I knew that I was like that. I had tried to swear up and down this entire time that I was doing all of this—the needing to be the best—for myself. But it wasn’t. I’m like that too. That’s kind of what Dr. Magic was, me taking a step back from needing everyone to know I was the smartest person in the room. A quasi-experiment, to see if I could do it.”
“I think that after graduation, maybe we both chill on being the smartest person in the room, and try to just spend a summer working on that magical bucket list of yours?” You suggested.
“Oh?” He perked up at this. “Really?”
“You ever seen a werewolf shift?”
“No…”
“That sounds like a ‘not yet’ to me.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He confirmed with a conspiratorial grin that mirrored the one that you could feel across your own face. “You know how sirens can’t get dosed up on their own venom?”
“Yeah…” You nodded, wondering where he could be going with this.
“Well, I know a witch with a proprietary love potion blend that I think we might be able to modify to produce similar effects.”
“Fascinating.” You thought on this for a second, very quickly running through your knowledge of potion properties to imagine what it could be. “Two-factor blood potion?”
“Yes. But we’d put your venom in it instead of your blood so it wouldn’t kill me.”
“That could work…” You mused. “Speaking of, I should really give you a full dose one of these days.”
He breathed in sharply. “That wasn’t a full dose?”
“Nope.”
“Holy shit…”
“Have you ever watched a phoenix reincarnation?” You added another suggestion to your joint summer bucket list.
“Have you? Wouldn’t that literally blind us?” Renjun questioned, something akin to genuine concern on his face now.
You shrugged. “Allegedly. It’s never been recorded in a lab setting, so who really knows.”
“I think we’re going to get each other killed before we can get our PhDs,” he declared with a fond smile and shake of his head.
“Hey, the betting pools said we’d kill each other by junior year, so I think we’re doing well for ourselves.”
“Do you think we can collect on those bets when we graduate and we’re both still alive and have all of our limbs?”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”
“Oh my god, come here,” Renjun groaned deliriously, kneeling to grab your face with two hands and crash his lips to yours. You curled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him down with you as you fell back against the arm of his couch, still connected.
Yeah, you’d drive off that burning bridge when you got there.
⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist
#renjun#nct dream x reader#nct x reader#renjun x reader#huang renjun#nct dream imagine#renjun imagine#nct imagine#nct dream fluff#nct fluff#renjun fluff#i: renjun#f: dr_magic2303#au: strawberry sunday#*100#*200
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a brain busted lunacy letter to:
YOU AND UR VERY OWN HUMAN EYES- READING THIS RIGHT NOW
+ tumblr,
I need each and every one of you to pls hear me out: i want you to feel it too. Remember long form content? Alright, gather your tits. Let’s get into it. 😈 if you remember how to read … come down there and see it for yourself.
hey you little bag of flesh meat, cartridge, water and electricity… come closer i said… 🙂
I deeply find the tumblr space, as a whole, so vitally valuable to our current society. I, like all of you, have painstakingly enjoyed sifting, repurposing, creating, and displaying a woven unique tapestry… mine is currently over 10 years long. A historical virtual “scroll” 📜… Manila ironic in the worst way: the scroll 🤳🏾 that consumes us.
This isn’t MINDLESSLY scrolling… it feels like… peaking penetratingly into the minds of human beings through their own perceptions.
Every fucking photo, gif, text post, meme, story, song, collage, any and all of it … was put there purposely. Everything … means something to someone here. That’s … fucking incredible.
That’s … fucking human magic. 🪄 something no other social media platform can recreate in the world of TikTok’s, we remained tumblr.
Every single mf time I find a new blog or revisit a mutual’s blog… and I just burst with color and vibrance and wild wickedness and I … drift… loosing myself in the back of your brains, I’m saved.
I’m saved from my own brain, trauma, habits, hangups, mental health… I’m just safe.. tucked behind YOUR brain… and they always fucking feel JUST like mine… so thank you.
I love human beings so much and this is my MOST favorite way to experience them. I’m so fucking happy I haven’t been able to log back into my TIKTOK for months. This is the only place I want to be when I’m online.
The tumblr scroll is so much more healthy: i see these feeds as very distinct and endlessly versatile flip book of human ingenuity and stupidity and comradery and community stitched together to make a pattern that mirrors a portion of a person… can you imagine? IT’S FASCINATING! I mean I know It’s equally ugly here and often… yet outstandingly but overwhelmingly … this is a safe space for creators and the many fandoms we express and decompress with.
i remain almost speechless,on the brink of pure pleasure… on how absolutely embedded i am into all of your collective energy on this stupid little imperfectly perfect fucked up little platform.
Look at April Fool’s Day: Tumblr reminded us all.. to just exhale and have fun TOGETHER. Ugh. gut me gently with the sheer scale of talent and genius and curiosity and kindness and skill and silly and authentic and absurd and individual yet succinct creation of … art. Of feed art. 🖼️ the scale and silly of the creativity around that now HOLIDAY, was tremendous and stupid and clever and community and inclusive.
i hope to one day gain support in organizing and leading a team of experts to create a true con for us. i have experience in events and .. I care. 🧠🪄
tumblr… this … is one of my longest lasting relationships, and i cherish the time so very dearly. From screaming at porn bots to whispering to mutuals… I’m so grateful for all of it.
#tumblr community#i love tumblr#tumblr drama#tumblr meta#tumblr theme#tumblr update#writers on tumblr#tumblr girls#black tumblr#tumblr#tumblr staff#staff picks#staff#personal#borderline Belle#mental health#mentally exhausted#healing#mental health matters#girlblogging#recovery#release#tumblr is my diary#tumblr lore#dashcon
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SUN'S OUT TONGUE'S OUT
My entry for the Unsounded Fanworks Contest and tribute to the bestest girl Pantoffel! If you like it please give it a vote!
Edit: Holy shit you guys! I won?! Thanks to all who voted and hope you enjoyed it!
In the meantime, here are some detail photos and a breakdown of the work that went into making it under the cut, featuring the bestest boi and model, my pupper Sharky. Scroll to the end for a special treat!
The saddle is real leatherwork at a tiny scale. Everything patterned, wet-shaped, dyed, finished, and assembled by yours truly. The saddle blanket is custom-made to match as well. The seat of the saddle is stitched to the base just at the front and back to allow the pieces to move in relation to each other for a more comfortable fit.
The pommel and backrest are both modeled and 3D printed by yours truly as well, with sports tape for the fabric on the pommel. Both are attached using rivet backings set through hollow points in the prints.
From the back more detail can be seen for the backrest. It is wet-shaped and stretched over the base, and then flathead pins were cut short and turned into the tiniest nails to nail it in place. No glue was used at all in it's construction.
The collar was constructed so that it fit around Sharky's head and then the tension in the straps under his legs pulled it tight. Those straps are attached to loops placed in the stitching with lobster clasps. Much of the construction is hidden in his majestic chest fluff, but a good chunk of it can be seen here.
And now on to his co-star, Captain Emil Toma!
This was a Finn action figure that I did heavy modifications to. Original details were mostly sanded off for a vaguely person-shaped base thar I then sculpted details back onto with epoxy-putty. Even his face recieved a bit of shaping to change the underlying bone structure to match Emil better. All of the original joints still move save for his left wrist, which needed to be sealed in place lest his hand fall off. The gun the figure was holding was replaced by his sword. I decided to stick to mostly early/mid-comic designs, picturing this as a toy a Crescean kid might play with before the events of the comic take place.
From the back we can see the leather pouch which was hand-stitched together and attached with a rivet back. It's fully functional and can store approximately 4 quarters in it. The scabbard was 3D printed with a peg for attachment purposes and the parts that 'hold' it to the sash are clothing tags.
The sash itself is fabric and held in place with fashion tape. Edges were melted to seal them and then folded under to allow me more control over how they wrinkle. The badge is hand-sculpted from the same epoxy-putty used to modify the body. It's about as tall as my thumbnail and I have never wished for a resin printer more ardently than when I was sculpting it with a straight pin.
Proportionally the two of them are nearly perfect together! But, regrettably, the figure was too heavy to sit in the saddle on his own. Especially on a dog that can out-run a dalmatian! Hence why they were photoshopped together for the final image.
I hope you enjoyed this tour of the utter insanity that has been my free time for the last few months. I actually started this before the contest was announced...and through some setbacks and bad timing of life events still didn't get done until the last minute. As promised, here is your special treat!
#unsounded#fanworks contest#unsounded fanworks contest#leatherworking#doll mods#photoshop#why am i like this#pantoffel#emil toma#captain toma
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The Season's Been Laid Out in the Cards...
The above are a direct depiction of the editing of the show:
Lou views the wall of evidence with Sam Dalton, and says 'So it seems like it's about Objects. Do we have these things? Do we put them on the numbers? (This is correct to escape the step)
The lore provided for Sam Dalton's disappearance reads: "SAMUEL DALTON PRESUMED DEAD Friends and Colleagues gathered this past Saturday to mourn the passing of Samuel Dalton, who disappeared during his magic act last July. Dalton had encircled himself with household objects over the numbers of a clock when a bolt of lightning struck a magnet overhead leaving behind only his smoldering footprints. He is survived by his two sons, Ray and Bolt Dalton, who have since denounced the magical arts."
Brennan suggests someone goes out to start collecting the objects they need, and someone else "stay in here and see if they exist in this space". Sam looks shocked and delighted, looking offstage at someone, and biting his hand to stay quiet. Brennan notices, and asks "What are you biting your hand about?" suspiciously. Sam dramatically mimes zipping his lip and says nothing.
A couple of things that are not in the editing but personal theory notes:
This editing compared to the fairly clear and concise wrap-up on rewatch, especially Sam's over the top reaction to this bit, and the multiple maintained clips that carefully compare the red room to hell/purgatory (Siobhan calls it Sartre-esque, etc) while we are now seeing a decay makes me fairly sure it's foreshadowing.
Escape the Room aired in March, but if we have a 13 episode season again the finale will be in July, when Samuel Dalton disappeared.
I do not know if the episodes are meant to be in order, or if they're exact #s, but there are many things Sam has given this season (Plant, Watch, Jacket) as either prizes or challenges directly, OR episodes could be more metaphorically interpreted (Ace of Cheetos - the single episode designed to torture the snacker, Two of Pillows for the Newlyweds)
Episodes like 6x03 the Three of Coats for Sam Says 3 with a wardrobe challenge or 6x06 Deja Vu with a with a watch prize and time theme have all of the above etc
The Playing Card Items: Ace - Cheeto, 2 - Pillows, 3 - Coats, 4 - Lint Rollers, 5 - Plants, 6 - Clocks, 7 - Vases, 8 - Shoe, 9 - Fire Extinguisher, 10 - Guitar, Jack - Smoke Detector, Queen - Surge Protector, King - Paper Clip
The Other Items Surrounding Samuel Dalton: Scales, Phonograph, Typewriter, Rotary Phone, Photo Camera, Video Camera, Pocket Watch, Bowler Hat
#game changer#dropout tv#sam reich#samuel dalton reich#sam dalton#Yes i did spend too long looking for cheetos before i remembered brendan went keto#burn after scrolling#dropout
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October: I'll Be The Moon
part three of fountain of sorrow
pairing: javier peña x f!reader
rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni
warnings/tags: set between s2 & s3, early/mid ‘90s, single mother [reader has a young daughter][child won’t play a massive role], lots of f bombs, some dude gets a lil handsy, BAR FIGHT w/ a little blood, terrible exes, SMUT, unprotected p in v sex, fingering, soft sex, creampie, hand restraint [just by other hands], praise kink, catching feelings, cigarettes [are bad for you], one use of bitch [directed at javi], one use of slut [directed at reader], pre during and post-sex photos, terms of endearment [querida, good girl], female reader, no physical description, protective!javi, no use of y/n.
word count: 7.4k
series masterlist
a/n: switching pov’s in this one. hope y’all are enjoying!
Two and a half months. That’s what it had taken for Javi to realize something was different. Previous women had been lucky if they lasted half as long. He generally wasn’t one for follow-through outside of work. And when he tried to pinpoint what exactly it had been that tipped the scales, it was an exercise in futility. It was just that he’d woken up on this particular Saturday – the weekend before Halloween – with a pang in his gut knowing that you’d be tied up the following weekend with the muñequita and your baby daddy. He’d questioned that… the baby daddy aspect of it… and tried not to sound too jealous or too offended. Doubt crept in that he hadn’t been too convincing.
Maybe it had been because his dad had started asking questions. What’re you doing on weekends? You never answer your phone. How come you never go to The Tack Room with us anymore? What girl have you got on the end of your line now? Oh, if Chucho only knew it was the chiquita on the end of Javi’s line, he’d probably have him drawn and quartered.
Or maybe it had been that night last weekend where, after laying side by side in the orgasmic afterglow, you’d turned into him, curled your hand around his shaft, batted those pretty please eyelashes at him, and did your best damsel in distress act about how the Halloween decorations were in boxes in the attic. Too heavy, too big for little ol’ you to carry down by yourself. And though it was already two in the morning (and you promised a thank you blowjob), he’d never moved faster to climb up into an attic, sift through the dust and cobwebs for the plastic bins holding skeletons and bats and little witches. Truth was he would’ve done it for you even without the blowjob offer; a point made evident when after he’d set the bins in the living room, you sank to your knees in front of him to pay up, only to be confused when he also sank to his knees. And instead of allowing any sort of sexual progression, he dragged the first of the plastic tubs between you and yanked the lid off. The muñequita will be happy to see the house decorated for Halloween.
All Javier knew was that by the time he was sitting at the bar on this Saturday night, something was stirring in him that was getting increasingly hard to pinpoint or ignore. If not only for himself, but because ever since his little shutdown last month – the let’s not talk about Colombia shutdown – you’d done an exemplary job of keeping things pure business. The sex was… efficient, for lack of a better word. Small talk was nonexistent. Any question that may have had you curious never saw the light of day. And except for the little favors here and there, nothing personal ever came up. He didn’t know how, but you were too good at it. Especially at the bar.
Which is why tonight… Javier had his beer bottle clutched in his hands. White-knuckled in a firm grasp. He’s surprised the thing didn’t shatter. He could understand that it was a job. He’d been around enough working girls to know that sometimes getting better tips meant flirting with the patrons. And he knew he had no reason to feel any sort of possessive. You weren’t his; he’d made sure of that when he shut you down and told you that this was just sex. Maybe it was only because this guy wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone.
He was a couple barstools down from Javi. No one sat between them, much to Javi’s chagrin. He couldn’t have ignored this guy even if he was so inclined. But this asshole… Robert, you called him… was way too much of everything with you. At least in Javi’s eyes. He was too flirty with you. Too monopolizing of your time. Too goddamn touchy. All the times Robert reached over and touched your hand or arm was one thing. Javi didn’t think it appropriate but it didn’t make him want to knock him out.
But the times when you walked out from behind the bar, drink tray in your hand, and Robert let his hand brush over your backside… too much. To you, Robert was just the drunk that hung out way too much at the bar. But he was also the drunk that tipped you way too much and you weren’t about to tell him not to. Was it demeaning to have him groping you… maybe. And normally you wouldn’t let it happen. But the money…
The first time it happened, Javi nearly got out of his seat, but he was given pause when you turned around and faced Robert. He thought you were going to knock him to the floor. But instead, you only shot him a playfully disapproving glance and shook your head before carrying on with the task you’d set out to do in the first place. And that… Javi knew that wasn’t going to be the end of it. The second time it happened, Robert had gotten brave with a firm hand placement on your ass. That time you turned around and gently chastised him. Something like, “Robert,” your voice elongated the first vowel in his name. But the drunk just giggled and acted like a little innocent boy. Javi, however, felt his blood boiling.
But the third time it happened. Game over. You’d come out from behind the bar again, this time to clear off some tables littered with empty glasses and bottles. And Robert, not having learned from your previous two gentle reminders to keep his hands to himself, reached out again, this time giving your backside a pinch. The time between your surprised shriek and Javi getting off his stool, wrapping his fist around the collar of Robert’s shirt, was miniscule.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Javi growled, yanking on Robert’s shirt. The man, already unstable, stumbled backwards but not to the floor.
The one benefit of your past relationship – and working in the bar – was that you’d learned rather quickly how to de-escalate drunk, testosterone-ridden men. But instead of going to Robert, you went toward Javi, pushing on his arm. “Peña, stop.”
“Get off me, bitch,” Robert slurred at Javier.
Javi’s focus, which had only momentarily been on you, almost annoyed that you were telling him to stop, was now back on Robert. “How many times she have to tell ya’ to stop, fuckin’ creep?” Javi maintained he still did the right thing. If the situation had presented itself again, he would’ve done the same exact thing. Cocked his fist back in the same way. Made contact with Robert’s nose the same way. And stood over him the same way as Robert clutched at his bloodied, broken nose while now on the floor. “If I ever see you touch a woman here ever again…”
“Javier!”
His eyes shot over to you, finding pure fury. You stepped in front of him and pushed him back with all your might. He only went back a step, which you figured was more due to his cooperation than your strength.
“Get out of here, Peña!” You yelled right at him, but instead of getting a move on, he went to open his mouth to rebut. “Go home, Javi!”
❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖
Something was up with Javi. You’d noticed it first after he’d turned down your blowjob offer after getting the Halloween decorations from the attic. He had never turned down a blowjob before. Usually it was a matter of how quickly you could get your mouth open. And just when you might’ve started to think that his attraction to you was waning, he’d give you the most mind-shattering orgasm. Which begged the question: what was up with Javier Peña?
It also struck you as odd that although he didn’t stop going to The Tack Room completely, you’d made an observation that he no longer came on the nights Chucho came around. You’d still see him at your house after work, but he didn’t show up at the bar to hang out when his dad also happened to be there. Which maybe was for the better considering Javier fucking Peña decked one of your largest tippers tonight. And had Chucho seen his son do that, you had the notion that he might just ship Javi back to Colombia, free of charge to Uncle Sam. And as if just punching the guy wasn’t bad enough, Robert’s face was busted. Lip split, nose broken. Blood poured from new holes Javi had punched into his face.
You’d told him to get out of there. To go home. But you knew you’d see him outside your house that night. Would’ve bet your life’s savings on it, and would’ve doubled it because when you pulled up that night, Javi was sitting on the porch step – the same place you’d seen him that first day with your daughter. As soon as you threw the car in park on the driveway, he was standing up, brushing his palms on the back of his pants. Time had visibly calmed him down but it had only riled you up.
“What the fuck were you thinking?! Do you know how much that guy tips me?!”
Javier approached you, holding up his hands in front of his chest. “I’m sorry,”
“Do you know how much he tips me?!”
Whatever calmness time had given Javi, you were managing to pull him out of it. Your elevated level… not to mention your apparent biggest qualm being how much money you were going to lose out on… brought him to a spot he wasn’t prepared to go. At least, not with you.
“You let him touch you so he’ll tip you better?” Javi pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and sifted through it until he produced a hundred dollar bill, “if money’s what you want, I’ll put it on your dresser before we fuck!”
“Fuck you, Javi!
“Fuck me?! I defended you and the only person you got mad at was me! How about the fucker that was grabbing your ass all night?”
You got up in his face, ready and way too willing to continue this argument. Had you just taken a moment… a millisecond… to think, you probably would’ve chosen a different path. “How do you know I didn’t want him grabbing my ass?”
There was a chance steam was coming out of Javi’s ears at this point. If you’d been a medical professional, you might’ve asked that he sit down, put his head between his knees, and take a few deep breaths. But you were not a medical professional, you were just pissed. And that last statement? After the steam had fully evacuated Javi’s ears, he scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head.
“Okay,” he kept his fingers over his mouth and shook his head again. “Then go fuck that guy. I can’t do this anymore,”
Your heart dropped into your stomach. You’d wanted a fight. Maybe some hot, angry sex. But you didn’t want him to back off completely. And judging by everything you knew about him, you didn’t think he’d back off so easily. “It’s just sex. Who cares if I get it from you or someone else?” Even that sounded a little meaner than you hoped it would.
Javier shook his head and let his arms drop back down to his sides, emphatically. “‘cause I’m not gettin’ it from anyone else,”
“That’s not my problem,”
“Yes it is,” he insisted and glared at you. “I’m stickin’ up for you. And I’m decorating your house for Halloween. And I’m fuckin’ jealous you’re spending next weekend with your ex.”
A smile crept over your face, and though you did your best to hide it – to not let Javi think you weren’t taking him seriously – you knew he’d pick up on it. It was kind of endearing that Mr. Famous Playboy was jealous.
He tilted his head to the side, “don’t look at me like that,” he begged.
But you continued to. In fact, you let your smile widen as you closed the gap and pressed your hands against his stomach.
“Quit it,”
You giggled and curled your fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “You wanna come inside?”
He wrapped his arm around your waist and held you close. Fingers dragged absent designs at your lower back. “Only if you promise me something,” an earnest smile stretched over his lips. “Never sleep with that guy,”
“What guy?” You beamed.
“Good girl,” he patted your ass and turned on his heels with you.
You unlocked the front door as quickly as your shaky fingers would allow. Maybe angry sex wouldn’t be happening tonight, but something potentially even better would be. Make up sex. It was unmarked territory with Javi. Up until now, there wasn’t anything to make up for. Up until now, outside of the ‘him being inside you’ part, the sex hadn’t been very personal. He’d made sure of that.
But now he was up in front of you and it felt so much different than all the other times. You’d found yourself cornered up against the wall in your entryway, Javi standing right in front of you. His knee had made a spot for itself in between your legs but his hands… they’d never been so gentle before. Slow hands. At one time they brushed over your skin without acknowledging the scars, marks, and blemishes that made up the entirety of you. But this time… they floated over skin with the lightest of touches, taking their time in exploring the expanse of you. Even the way he kissed you with the caution and hesitancy of someone not as sure of themselves. There was the fleeting thought that he’d remember who he was – what his intent was – and he’d pick up to the ravaging he was known for. Though he never did. Not tonight. Not as he cupped his hands around either side of your neck and used his gentle hold on it to lead you away from the wall and toward your bedroom. Not as his forward momentum was only thwarted when the back of your legs hit your mattress and he leaned his body over you, crawling forward to work you further up the bed. Not even when he’d gotten you fully reclined, with his knees straddling your legs, and started to help you undress. Fabric peeled from your body with the same amount of care painters took to canvas… sculptors to marble.
Shirt discarded to the side in an instant and his lips to your chest the next. Soft kisses traced your clavicle until his mouth met the notch at the base of your neck, then carried over across the other. Your hands migrated up over his shoulders and to the hair at the nape of his neck with gentle tugs. Maybe that’d get him to pick things up.
But he was not to be riled. Even the act of you reaching behind your back and unclasping your bra was met with little acceleration. Javier simply reached up and pulled the now useless garment away from your body. Put his lips in its place. Let his tongue roll over your nipple until it pebbled in his mouth. And you pulled on the ends of his hair again, this time with more force until he relented and lifted his head. Stared at you with hooded, confused eyes.
“What?”
“What’re you doing?”
Javi looked down at your breasts and took a deep breath before he looked back up at you, “what?”
“There’s suspiciously no fingers, tongue, or dick between my legs,”
“M’getting you ready for me. I always do that,” he bowed his head and pressed his lips back to your chest, but when you pulled on his hair again for his focus, he groaned. “What?”
“You don’t need to. I’ve been wet since you punched that guy in the face,”
Javier’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Pure surprise raced through him. “You yelled at me for that and your fuckin’ pussy’s drippin’?!”
“Okay,” you positioned your hands on his chest and pushed against him, “you don’t have to be crass.” The distance you’d put between you by pushing on his chest was quickly made up for when you curled your fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulled him back toward you. “Don’t go slow,”
Your hands tucked lower beneath the hem of his shirt, nudging it upwards until your fingers met his chest and he was all but forced to take it off completely. It soon joined yours at the end of the bed. But when your hands went for his belt, he snatched them away and lifted them above your head. You stared up at him, smirking, when he dropped his weight to you and pinned wrists down.
“Don’t be impatient. Let me take my time,” he pecked your lips and grinned when he pulled back and you jut your bottom lip out in a pout. “Put that lip away,” he ducked his head into the side of your neck and bit into your skin. “Just let me make you feel good,”
“You can do that without going so slow,”
Javi pushed himself up and sat back on his knees. Skilled fingers worked on the button and zipper of your jeans, “keep runnin’ your mouth and you’re not gonna get anything.”
“Peña–”
“Shhh, querida. Just take it easy,”
Convinced you would be – at least for a little while – he stripped you out of your jeans. As he continued on, leaning back over you and nudging the fabric of your underwear to the side so he could feel the proof of what you’d already told him, you realized the slow progress wasn’t as snail-like as you’d first complained about. It wasn’t that it was slow as much as it was intentional. For the first time in the two months you’d had this routine, it was settling in that this was Javier acting on something other than animal autopilot.
His lips came back to yours and took you into a searing kiss. His teeth nipped at your bottom lip. Tongue searched for entrance into your mouth, undeterred. Fingers found the opening they were looking for, too. Pushed into the tightness of your core and didn’t stop their forward motion until they were down to the last knuckle. Your jaw dropped, eyes fluttered open to find Javi’s already in a hungry stare at you. His mouth hung open over yours, sharing breaths as he curled his fingers inside you and brushed the tips against your gspot. A coo left your body, and the smirk that crossed over Javi’s face was undeniable. He had you right where he wanted you.
“Told you I’d make you feel good,”
You spread your legs further apart to give him as much free, open space as possible. Catching his lips for another kiss, the unhurried pace of his mouth and fingers was going to have you spiraling far quicker than you’d like to admit. Tongues lapped and rolled against each other in a battle both wanted to win but would gladly lose. And then he brushed his thumb over your clit, and you all but thought that was going to be your undoing. The way your legs flinched together around his hand, and the way every muscle in your body seemed to flex at once. Then, for better or worse, Javi eased his fingers out of you. Kept his eyes on you for any sign of too much discomfort, of which he only clocked a little. He backed off the bed until he was able to stand at the foot of it and rid himself of his jeans, all too thankful for the vision of you snaking your hand down your body. Fingers drifted past your breasts, to your stomach, and beneath the lace of your underwear to slide the flimsy fabric off your body. It caught on one of your ankles but you hardly paid it any attention; choosing to replace your fingers on your clit and massage yourself, equally thankful for the vision Javier was giving you. Of his hand wrapped around his shaft, jerking himself off with long, steady strokes. The sinewy muscles of his chest, shoulder, and bicep strained against his skin, and knelt back on the bed again. He used his unoccupied hand to free your ankle from your lacy underwear.
Removing your fingers from your clit, you stretched your body out beneath him, grinning like a mad fool for the sight of him above you. For the way his sheer size and presence made you feel small; made for him to take at his whim. He released his member as he was now fully hard. The vein that ran along the underside of his length more prominent than before, and he lowered himself until the tops of his thighs were pressed against the backs of yours. His cock rest against your belly. From base to tip, he measured up to your belly button. A fact that was not lost on you as he held it in place as if to drive that point home.
“Camera,”
You flicked your glassy eyes up to his face, “what?”
“Where’s the camera?”
You swallowed, chest swelling with heat. You obliged, even if just to avoid his piercing gaze, and outstretched your arm toward the nightstand. He seemed to understand and bent over to carry on the plight. Though you watched carefully as he took the Polaroid out of the drawer and then quickly returned to his spot on his knees between your legs. Javi angled the camera downward, jaw slackening as he focused on the image in the viewfinder: Your breasts full and resting free all the way down to where your waists met. His length on full display for reference against your body.
He snapped the photo and handed the grayed out picture to you. It was in your hands for just a second before he dipped his hips and sheathed himself inside your core. His eyebrows furrowed together and with the little coordination he had left in him, he set the camera down on the bed beside you.
“Javi,” you moaned out. It floated into nothingness in the space between you.
A groan released from his chest and he lowered himself to you, chest pressed to yours and his hands cupped together on top of your head, cradling you there beneath him. “Jesus Christ, you always feel so good,”
You grazed your teeth along his jaw until he lowered his head a little bit more, making it conducive for you to kiss him again. His hips began their slow thrusts forward. Each one only pulling himself out halfway before burying himself back in to the hilt. Little puffs of breath escaped your lungs each time he filled you back up.
“So big,” you whispered into his lips. The next thrust had his tip pressing against your cervix and you pressed your head further into the pillow, turning it to the side to catch your breath. His mouth went for your neck at first exposure. “You fill me up so good,”
The continued closeness of his hips on yours meant the friction against your clit was pretty much nonstop. Each pass of his body strung you higher and higher, and in an attempt to ground yourself, you reached up to curl your arms around Javier’s shoulders. The photo you hadn’t even bothered to look at yet discarded on the bed. But he all too quickly robbed you of that opportunity, and gathered both of your wrists in one of his large, strong hands. You whimpered at the lack of contact, but it then turned into a delighted hum when he lifted your hands up above your head and kept them pinned in place with his strong grasp.
“Worth the wait?” He chuckled.
You imagined the expression on your face showed pure bliss. Your pulse had already begun to pound, feeling it in your cheeks, ears, temples. Lips swollen and begging to be kissed. “Fuck me, Javi,”
He smiled to himself, your eyes having drifted shut. There was one particularly hard and deep thrust before there was nothing at all. His hand no longer on your wrists. Chest and stomach no longer against yours. He wasn’t even inside you anymore. And that had you opening your eyes, whimpering, reaching blindly for him until you realized he’d sat back on his knees to get you in a different position. Limp for him to maneuver however he pleased, you shrieked when he wrapped his arms around your thighs and pulled you back into him. Then taking one of your ankles, he crossed it in front of his body until your lower half was twisted to the side, legs pressed flush together. Contorted like this, your upper half was still mostly in the position it had been in before, just a little more turned to accommodate for the twisted angle of your spine and hips.
Javi grabbed onto your ass and tugged it gently to give himself a better view when he sunk his length back into you. You winced and let out a sharp cry when he pushed himself balls deep; your body struggling to acclimate to his full size at this angle. Through he reached for the camera again, his eyes never left your face.
“Y’alright?” he murmured, winding the camera up.
“Too big,” you panted out, trying to relax yourself around him.
He held the camera up and took another picture. This one he didn’t even bother removing after it printed. Just set the whole thing back down on the bed. “You can do it, querida,” he grinned and set his hands back on your ass, using the leverage to rock himself in and out of you slowly. He could feel your body fighting him still, but just as he was about to say the words, your instinct beat him to it. Your fingers pressed between your legs and began rubbing your clit. It moderately helped. It being slightly easier for him to push into you, “atta girl.”
“Javi,” you whined and pulled your hand away from your clit, moving it to instead wrap it around his wrist. “Javi,”
“Tell me,”
You swallowed harshly, fingernails digging into his skin, “this is no good for–”
But he was already pulling out of you and grabbing your ankle before you could finish. He placed your leg over his shoulder as he bent back down toward you. Both his hands planted on the mattress by your shoulders. He pushed back into you and immediately caught the moan it pulled.
“Better,” you smiled breathlessly and returned your hand to your clit to match the steady pace he set. “Good. So good,”
“God, you’re just…” Javi’s breath caught in his throat and the muscles in his stomach flexed, “so fuckin’ tight.”
You reached up for him until he obliged and leaned in closer to you. It nudged him deeper inside you and kept him there. “Come inside me,”
He shook his head and moved one hand from the bed to your neck; fingers loose. “Not before you,”
“Please. Javi, please,” you let out a needy moan and tilted your head back against the pillow, elongating your neck.
Javi growled and curled his fingers against your neck, grip tightening as he fought with himself whether to listen to you or not. Truthfully, he was hanging on by a goddamn thread. It wasn’t that he wasn’t close. It was that he didn’t want to get in the habit of coming first.
“Javi,” you begged.
“Are you close?”
“Yes. Please,” you purposefully squeezed yourself around him, pulling his shaft deeper. “Just want to feel all of it inside me first,”
He wanted to think about it while he had the chance. While he could hold out. But then your body fluttered involuntarily around him and his heart almost stopped. His hips stuttered, he bit back a deep, guttural moan, and then not being able to stop it if he tried, he came, rope after rope of his spend coating your walls.
“Fuck,” he muttered, feeling his member twitch inside of you. And normally, he’d be able to catch his breath. Take a minute and pull out of you. But now you were writhing beneath him, grabbing at the sheets and white-knuckling them. Though normally his body would prepare to wind down, there was only one thing he wanted now, and he’d do anything to get it. He laid his weight on top of you, his head beside yours, mouth pressed to your ear, “come all over me, querida. Let me feel you squeeze me.”
Your body began to tremble and a whimper tore through your chest.
“Show me what a good girl you are. Give it all to me,”
Clutching on to him with all your might, your arms wrapped around his rib cage, you hung on for dear life as your orgasm ripped through you. Your thighs flinched tighter to his hips. Silent pleas that he’d stay deep inside you. And you buried your face into the base of his neck, muffling the scream that came from deep within.
Throughout it all, Javi keep his soft, filthy whispers in your ear. Talked you through the entirety of your climax until you were a breathless, sweaty heap laying limp beneath him. And even then, he kept himself right where he was, lips at your ear; his hand cupped around your waist with fingertips drawing light circles on the small of your back.
“Atta girl, querida,” he pecked your neck, taking deep breaths so you’d try to align your breathing to his. “That’s my good girl,”
That had you moving again. Your hands gripped into his side with a little more purpose. Lips laid tender kisses to his shoulder. He lifted his head and kissed you intently. Slowly. Happy to take his time here, even as his member grew softer inside you.
“Can I take another picture of you?” He whispered and waited for you to nod. Only then did he pull out of you, eyes locked onto your core. His fingers searched the bed until they found the camera again. “Turn over for me,” he smiled when you immediately stirred to obey, “chest down, ass up.”
You shook your head and let out a quick giggle, “pervert.” Yet still did as you were told. Turned over on the bed and kept your chest pressed against the mattress with your back end higher than the rest of your body.
Javi removed the previous photo from the camera – the one of you on your side, your body seductively twisted and contorted for him. He wound the camera and then held it up to his eye with one hand. Then, using the other he smacked your ass once before taking it in a firm grip and pulled your cheek to the side. “Let me see it,”
“Hmm?” You turned your head to the side.
“Let me see it. Push it out,”
Your face grew warmer at his request. Yet again, you didn’t take a second to think before obeying him. Wanting absolutely nothing more than to keep hearing him say good girl, you clenched your muscles until you could feel the mixture of yours and his come seeping out of you. The sound of the Polaroid capturing the moment came next.
“Javi,” you moaned. The feeling of his come dripping down you, stirring you up all over again.
But his hand was on you next. Two fingers started at your swollen clit and worked their way up your slit to gather the come you’d pushed out. And when he pushed it back into your spent hole, you let out another exasperated moan. “I know,” he whispered and playfully thrust his fingers into you, pushing his come back inside, deep.
Only once he pulled them out, did you turn over and flop back down to your back. He was crawling up to lay beside you, having collected the three photos he’d taken of you tonight. And you’d curled into his side, head resting on his chest as he showed them off to you, the last of which still developing and growing clearer and raunchier with each passing second. Just the sight of it… and knowing it was you… with his come… you buried your face in his chest nervously.
Javier laughed and kissed the top of your head. He set the pictures down beside him and used his now free hands to wrap around you, holding you close. “Feel good?”
You nodded against his chest, “feel great.”
He smiled and took a deep breath which he held, thinking. It stirred you enough to look up at him, finding him contemplative. But your gaze was unwavering and he decided to bite the bullet. “You know, I never see you when the sun’s up,”
“I’m busy when the sun’s up,”
Javi nodded. “Maybe I can take you out sometime. During the day,”
You rolled over onto your back, “you know I can’t next weekend.”
“Another weekend, then.”
What came next was a cruel, cruel turn of events because you wanted to give him a resounding yes. A sure thing. An absolute. But before you could answer, the doorbell chimed, reverberating noise through your house. You and Javi both looked at the bedroom door as if that’d tell you everything you needed to know about the person at the front door. But after a second, the doorbell rang again, and this time, Javi slid his arm out from underneath you. He was halfway up before you pulled on his arm.
“Stay here,” you rose out of bed and walked to the small closet, pulling from it a thin cotton robe. Javi wondered what that garment would do in terms of concealing your body, but you were out of the room too quickly for him to ask, and pulled the bedroom door shut behind you.
Trapped behind a door, Javi strained his ears for any information to clue him in on who was there. He wondered if it was your ex. And if it was, Javi wondered if he’d amble out of your room and sidle up beside you. That thought had him fully out of bed and pulling his pants up his legs again. But he soon realized it wasn’t. No, because he heard the muñequita’s voice ring through the walls and he figured it was your mom at the door.
Javi looked at the clock on your nightstand when he figured he should probably hide the photos he’d taken tonight with the rest that you’d previously taken of him. And he kept staring at the clock, wondering when you’d come back to him. Wondered if he should just walk out without a care of who was there to see him. Ultimately he didn’t though. Just as you’d done as he asked tonight, he did as you asked. Sat at the edge of the bed and waited until you finally came back.
The bedroom door creaked open and you slipped inside, taking the utmost care to close the door so slowly that virtually no noise came from it. Javi stood as you neared him again and pressed your hands to his chest.
“I forgot her dad’s coming over tomorrow morning. It’s his day with her,”
Javi nodded, trying to be as understanding as possible. “I didn’t know he got any days with her,”
You nodded, “be my guest to take that up with the judge.”
He sensed you weren’t thrilled at all with the situation, and the only thing he knew to do in this moment other than go full DEA, was to try to comfort you. He lifted his hand and cupped it over the back of your head, guiding you into him. Scritching through your hair, he kissed the top of your head and let the silence wash over you both.
But you tilted up and set your chin down against his chest, “you wanna stay tonight?”
Javi pursed his lips and cupped his hands over your cheeks. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,”
“I don’t know if coming inside me is a good idea but you do it anyway.”
Got him.
❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖
By the time Javi woke the next morning, you were already out of bed. Squinting through the sunlight that filtered in from the window, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand and noted it wasn’t that he was rising late, but you had risen early. And judging by your slightly elevated voice elsewhere in the house, he figured you were running around, trying to get the muñequita ready before her dad showed up to scoop her away.
Though he’d been kept in the bedroom last night, he decided that didn’t carry over into the daylight. Searching the floor for his shirt, he picked it up and slid it back over his shoulders. He did up the buttons and gave himself a passing glance in the mirror on his way out of the room. The muñequita’s voice grew louder as he ambled down the hallway, and he turned the corner for the kitchen, where he came face to face with her sitting at the table. You stood behind her, fighting with her fidgeting to tie her hair up in pigtails.
“Hey!”
You looked up and followed the direction of her outstretched arm to find Javi at the end of it, in the threshold. He was clothed at least, but you’d been hoping he’d stay out of sight until it was just the two of you in the house again.
“Hey muñequita,” he strode into the kitchen and reached out to take her hand. He served to keep her still enough so you could finish tying her hair up.
“Why are you in our house?”
Javier opened his mouth but looked back up at you in the same moment, finding that your expression was much less chill than his was. He nodded subtly, quiet submission to you knowing the muñequita was still awaiting an answer.
“Go get your shoes on. Your dad’s gonna be here soon,”
Without argument, she hopped off the chair and ran out of the kitchen. Her little feet padding their way down the wood floor until she reached her bedroom door and nudged it open with a creak. But your eyes were back on Javi in an instant, frustration rising. “What the fuck, Peña?”
He smirked and side stepped you, having locked on to the drip coffee pot on the counter, full and ready to be consumed. “What?” He opened the cabinets one by one before he found the one with coffee cups and pulled one out for himself. Even took his damn sweet time filling it up with black coffee before he turned back around and saw you staring at him. Unimpressed. Hip cocked out to the side with your hand on it. “Sorry, didn’t know I was some sex object you kept locked away in your room,”
“Not in front of her,”
“She was happy to see me,”
“She’s five! She doesn’t know what she is,” you scrubbed your hands over your face. “She’s my kid. You don’t get to make any decisions where it concerns her, okay? On the topic of us, I get to decide how and when she learns about it.”
“Come on, it’s–”
“Okay?”
He nodded, “okay.”
That was all you let him have before you crossed in front of him and continued down the hall in the direction of your daughter’s room. It gave Javier time to look around the kitchen; at all the little things that made this your well lived in home. The chipping paint on the drawers. The cracked floor tile by the fridge. The way a few of the cabinet doors hung slanted and off kilter, creating uneven lines in between them. The sorts of things you would’ve added to a list for the man in your life had you had one. And it only made him think about if there had been another man between your ex and him filling that void. He hoped not, if only because that man did a piss poor job at fixing things around here.
And the attention he was giving that thought had him failing to fully acknowledge the knock on the door. Half conscious of it, he’d thought it was the muñequita tapping her fist along the wall as she came down the hallway. But then the knock happened again and it didn’t result in either of you joining him in the kitchen. Javi set his coffee cup down on the counter and thought about calling out to you, but then the knocking happened for a third time. This time accompanied with a man’s voice shouting a slur toward you and well… if you’d known anything about Javi’s time in Colombia, it was that he hardly ever played nicely and he wasn’t about to start now.
He pulled open the front door, making sure his shoulders and hips were square to the man standing on the other side of it. A undoubtedly threatening stance. And it was received that way when the man he came to understand was your baby daddy eyed him up and down. Disgust and anger, and something else, rising in his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” He spat, trying to look over Javi’s shoulder and into the house.
“Let’s call me a new friend,”
He laughed incredulously. “Yeah, I’m sure. Slut doesn’t know how to keep her legs closed,”
Here, there was little thought. It was an instinct that long lived in Javier. Before Colombia, he hadn’t been able to save his mother from hurt and pain. Couldn’t save Lorraine from (in fact had been the direct cause of it), and so in Colombia he honed the skill he now carried with him every day. Practiced it until it was second nature… with Helena… Elisa…
Javi took one giant step forward through the threshold; one hand gripping the wrist of the other man, and Javi’s other hand at his shoulder. Turning his body and using it as the perfect amount of leverage to incapacitate almost any threat, he pressed forward until the asshole in front of him now had his cheek squished against the rough stucco wall of the house. Javi took his hand from his shoulder and readjusted until his forearm pressed against his upper back, rendering your baby daddy immobile.
Javier took another step forward, his mouth at the ear of the man you’d once called a lover, and now called him something else. And though he fought, Javi held his ground. “If you say one bad thing about her, I will fuck you up. She’s gotta be nice to you ‘cause you share a daughter. But I don’t. I will end you,”
“Fuck you!”
Javi pressed harder on his back knowing once he let up, the other man would have the prickled imprints of the stucco on his skin. “And if the kid comes home with stories of things you said about her mom, I will fucking find you and I will fucking kill you.”
“Javi?”
Your voice called out from within the house and Javi took one giant step back, creating space between him and the man you were about to hand your child off to. The muñequita came to the door, a backpack nearly the size of her on her back, and reached out idly toward her dad. He clutched her hand, all but dragging her off the porch with a mention that he’d drop her back off tonight. But he was gone in seconds and yet you and Javi still stood on the porch – him watching the car peel out of the driveway, and you watching him. Scoping him out for what might’ve gone down.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’,” he shook his head and carried on back into the house.
“Peña?” You followed him back into the kitchen. He so coolly went back to the counter to retrieve his coffee, but you knew something was up. Your ex had never looked so riled… or flaunting skin that matched the stucco siding of your home.
“We had a chat, man to man. I think he’ll be on better behavior moving forward.”
#javier pena x reader#javier pena fanfiction#javier pena x you#javier pena narcos#javier pena x female reader#javier pena x f!reader#javier pena smut#javier pena angst#javier pena fluff#narcos fanfiction#narcos fic#javier pena fic#ppcu#ppcu fanfiction#fountain of sorrow#fos
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I've used a lot of makeup over my last 9 years of cosplaying, but this is whats in current rotation. My criteria for products is affordability, what performs well irl and in photos, and products that for the most part have a lower rating on the ewg scale (with few exceptions). I also don't really buy makeup outside of sale events like Black Friday, after Christmas, or during some promotion just so ya'll have context about the price ranges listed per item.
That said, this is more to share products and tools I use to create a base for other looks! So things that are more personal like eyeshadow, lipstick, blush etc were left out as that's really more of preference for each person.
I've included product links under the cut, if anyone has a cosmetic gem they've found over the years I'd love to hear recs!
Elf Porless Putty Primer
Elf Sponge Cleaner
Etude House Double Lasting Foundation
Milani Conceal + Perfect Foundation
Elf Camo Concealer
LA Girl Pro Concealer
Canmake Marshmallow Finishing Powder
Skinfood Peach Cotton Multi Finish Powder (loose)
Skinfood Peach Cotton Multi Finish Powder (pressed)
Rodin Contour & Bronzer | newest shade
Clio Prism Air Highlighter
Aliexpress Eyebrow stencils
House of Lashes Eyelash Glue | mini duo set
Duo Eyelash Glue
Ioni Lashes
Acrylic Makeup Palette
MAC Fix+
Essence Cosmetics Lip Liner
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Divine Interference
Content / Warnings : Copia/Reader, Explicit, Seriously very NSFW, Gender-Neutral Reader, Oral Sex, Handjob content, Previous Papas are alive and thriving. 3.7k words. Thanks, please enjoy! (AO3 link here)
Terzo does you a favour. Copia gets on his knees. You make extended eye contact with a rodent.
“I don’t think he’s coming,” you say idly, doing your best impression of someone successfully ignoring the atmosphere creeping up on them with the subtlety of a particularly large brick.
You can’t do another second of this. It’s twenty- ah - twenty one minutes past eight, Terzo is unspeakably late to the meeting he’d organised, and if you open your legs a little bit on this too-small couch you’ll be touching Copia’s thigh with your own.
Beside you, Copia sighs, abandoning his attempt to decipher the DVD cover of the arthouse film the three of you were supposed to be watching. He tosses it aside and fixes you with an apologetic gaze, brows knitted into the frown that reminds you it’s Copia, not Papa tonight.
“I’m sorry. I’ve tried to call him, what, five times? He isn’t picking up.” Reaching into his pocket, he retrieves his phone and presses redial.
You watch it ring out together.
This is less than ideal. Copia’s room is in definite danger of veering into the wrong side of warm, the open window doing little to alleviate the closeness of the summer air. When he adjusts himself on his seat to face you more fully you’re struck with the sudden thought that, actually, you might fit quite nicely on the couch if you were both horizontal.
And there it was, the dangerous tip of the scales that Terzo usually balanced. It’s always the same dance when the three of you meet; you show up, Copia and Terzo drench you in compliments, you flirt a little, and then you settle into whatever you have planned for the night together. And it’s fine, it’s fine, when they’re both there and there’s no chance of the night spilling over the edge of consequence. There’s nothing in it when it’s banter with men you’ve had an easy accord with for years, your friends, the first and second people at the Ministry to offer you a glass of wine upon your promotion to Sister Imperator’s personal assistant. Doesn’t mean a thing when you glance from Terzo’s casual smile to Copia’s earnest gaze and your heart does its best to rocket out of your chest.
Tonight, though, you’re in your second most fuckable outfit (you have a list, ranked), Copia is close enough that you can see each individual strand of grey at his temples and it would be oh, almost comically trivial to reach over and-
“We could…start without him?” Copia offers, gesturing towards the unopened bottle of wine on the table before you. “The wine, at least. Terzo can pay the late tax, eh? This is the good stuff and I would much rather share it with you.” He says it so directly that you suddenly find the weight of his gaze almost unbearable.
“Yeah,” you say. “That sounds nice! I’ll try to- I’ll try and get hold of him one last time.”
You stand perhaps a little too quickly and retrieve your phone from where you’d left it next to Copia’s rat enclosure - your photo gallery would be as bad as his in no time and it did not help that he kept making hats for them - and scroll through your contacts. Behind you, Copia busies himself uncorking the wine.
“I wouldn’t be offended if he doesn’t pick up,” he says, beginning to pour a glass. “I think his phone is broken, perhaps? Most of the time it just rings forever.”
You push the call button. It rings once, and-
“Yes?”
The sound of pouring wine stops immediately. You duck into Copia’s bathroom.
“Terzo? Where are you?” On the other end of the line you can hear a substantial amount of background chatter.
“Hm? I’m at a small gathering of friends drinking a tiny margarita,” Terzo says, tone infuriatingly casual. “Why?”
You take a moment to temper your voice before you respond. “Because you’re supposed to be at this small gathering of friends? The one you arranged?”
“Oh, yes,” he says languidly. “I’m not coming.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, and you must believe me, I fully intended to come. I was looking forward to putting myself down between you on that tiny couch and watching the two of you flirt awkwardly around me.”
There’s a pause, and you hear him take a sip of his drink. “But then I thought, ah, Terzo, look at the bigger picture. It has been months of all the glancing, and the touching, and the longing, and the not fucking for some reason and it is starting to wear a little thin. Obviously it is too distracting to have me there so I thought I would remove myself from the situation and let you, ah, crack on. So that is what I am doing.”
You take a moment to gather your thoughts. The bathroom door is slightly ajar, and through the gap you can see that Copia has settled himself back down and is circling the contents of his glass idly, waiting for you. You pace further into the bathroom and take a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
“So,” you say, voice low and steady, “you’ve gone to all this trouble purely so I can what? Seduce Copia?”
“If you want to put it so coarsely,” he laughs. “But seriously, get a move on. You’ve become much less fun since your promotion so I must assume the delay is a professionalism thing.”
Well, it was rude, but he was right. Truthfully, you’d pulled back from the pair once you were Officially Sister Imperator’s Personal Assistant in what some could name a too-late attempt to quell your own paranoia- the last thing you wanted as you settled into your role were whispers of nepotism, questions about your merit. So you threw yourself into your work, flirted less at parties. And they’d noticed, of course. Copia didn’t stand as close as he used to. You missed the casual brush of his arm.
“I didn’t want people thinking I wasn’t capable-”
Terzo scoffs. “You must be very into self-flagellation as I do not think anyone could care less. And what, what if someone thought you got the job because you were fucking a Papa, eh? Then you should fuck a Papa! Or two, for good measure,” he adds.
You file that one away for later.
“I mean,” he continues, “don’t do anything you don’t want to. But if you want to….ah…I’m just saying it would be a good opportunity.”
You have another little peek through the gap in the door. Copia is fiddling with the TV remote and oh, he’s rolled up his sleeves. Fuck. You close your eyes and take a deep breath.
“Hypothetically,” you begin quietly, “if I was interested…”
“Yeeees?” Terzo says, with a smugness that makes your fingers twitch.
“Then what am I supposed to do? How do I…open?”
“What, you need me to tell you how to screw someone?” He barks out a laugh. “Come on now. Just give him a hint, eh? Better- be honest. Tell him what you want. He responds well to direction. I have- yes I’m coming Omega give me a second- I have faith in you! Okay. Have fun! Okay. Bye!”
The line goes dead, and as you pull the phone away from your ear you realise you’ve been gone for longer than you intended. Shit. Without thinking, you stride back into the bedroom. Copia tears his gaze away from the television and shifts as if you’ve caught him off-guard.
“Ah, you’re back!” he says, fixing you with a bright smile. “That was Terzo?”
You nod. Immediately afterwards, you become excruciatingly aware that you now don’t quite know what to do with yourself. You’re hovering next to Copia’s lava lamp and you’re not sure what to do with your hands. Do people stand like this?
“Right,” he frowns. “So he can answer when it suits him. Understood. What did he have to say for himself?”
“He’s not coming,” you relay. “He’s at a… gathering.”
“I see," says Copia. “That’s very rude of him. Well. Do you still want to, er, watch the movie? It might be good. I think it’s French. But Terzo did pick it so,” he shrugs, “who knows.”
“We can find out,” you say, and he smiles.
Copia pats the seat next to him in invitation. You settle down, quietly mirroring his position- you’re turned slightly towards each other- and he passes you a glass of wine. Thank Lucifer, something to do with your hands. He’s halfway to the remote when you begin:
“He said-”
And then you stop. Copia pauses, looks at you questioningly, waits for you to continue. Which you don’t, because if you do, you’re setting a conversation into motion that could go either very well or extremely poorly. A conversation that relies on the oft-shaky communication between your brain and your mouth with a man, a Papa at that, who you really fancy. Maybe you should just go home. Copia raises an eyebrow.
“Hmmm? He said..?”
You realise you’ve already done it. “He said,” you venture, “that he thought it would be nice for us to spend some time together. Er, alone.”
“Oh.” Copia responds.
You should elaborate. Instead, you glance over to your left, over the back of the couch and to the room beyond, and promptly make eye contact with one of the rats. It’s staggeringly hard to look away when you know the alternative is looking back at Copia, and also neither you nor the rat has blinked for what feels like an eternity. You fold first.
“I didn’t plan this.” Copia’s voice drags you back to him. “I mean- I didn’t ask him to do this, just so you know. No subterfuge.”
“I know! It didn’t even cross my mind, you wouldn’t-”
“I wouldn’t-” He shakes his head. “Ah, am I protesting too much? I’m incriminating myself here.”
You laugh. “I’ve rumbled you.”
“But,” he says, “I am certainly not complaining. I feel as though I have not seen you in an age.”
It’s been five weeks since your promotion. Five weeks since you began spending less time reading in Copia’s office and more time poring over Sister Imperator’s schedule, taking breaks at odd hours, eating at your desk instead of in the dining hall where, inevitably, Terzo would’ve joined you. You’re good at this. You interviewed well. This is all you.
You take a sip of wine. “Well, you know. Sister Imperator keeps me busy. Lots of er, ghoul admin. I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit…distant.”
“There is no need to apologise. I understand. From what I hear, you’re doing an exceptional job. She’s lucky to have you.” His fingers tighten around the stem of his glass. “As anyone would be.”
Now, what you want to say is something like you can have me if you want but that feels absolutely unhinged. “Thank you,” is what you manage. And then you surprise yourself:
“I’ve missed you.”
There’s a clock, somewhere, punctuating the silence that now hangs between you. He’s looking at you with an expression you can’t quite place, and you’re sure you’re looking back at him with all the elegance of a deer in headlights. Copia glances briefly down at the wine in his hand, before gently placing it on the floor. He clicks the TV off and sets the remote next to his glass. And then he looks up at you, gaze direct and firm, and you want him to split you in half.
“May I ask you something?” Copia says.
“Yes.”
“Alrighty.” When he speaks again it’s a low, measured rumble. “Do you want to be alone like this? You and I?”
Here he is. It’s always a spectacle when Copia turns it on, no matter how many times you witness it; at Mass, in meetings, in the presence of distinguished visitors to the Ministry. You’ve observed him enough during your years in the clergy to become innately familiar with the change in register, the tilt of the chin, the fire in the eyes that accompanies Papa Emeritus IV when he desires something. And he’s looking at you.
“Yeah,” you say, heart hammering in your throat. “I do.”
Copia nods slowly. He’s leaning towards you, tentative hand outstretched to ghost your fingertips with his own. The absence of his touch is excruciating.
“Is there…anything else you want?”
Fucking hell, this is it. He’s handed you the tinder and you’re fumbling to light it.
At your hesitation, Copia pauses. “Please tell me if I’m overstepping.”
Overstepping. As if you haven’t spent a disgraceful amount of time imagining the way his hands would feel on you; didn’t have a mental list of surfaces in the Ministry he could bend you over. As if you haven’t imagined him underneath you, needy, begging you to let him finish. But here, now, he’s waiting for permission and you can feel that clock ticking away your chances of getting fucked with each passing second of silence.
“You’re not overstepping. I want this. You. It’s- it’s obvious. But-” you say, because you might as well- “I’m not very good at this part.”
He chuckles lightly, reaching out to take your glass and set it beside his. Finally, finally, he covers your hand with his own, tracing a lazy circle on your skin with his thumb. “I am trying very hard not to fuck this up also. Then, can I tell you what I want?”
“Tell me.”
“Are you sure? It is quite graphic.” He raises an eyebrow teasingly.
You permit yourself that which you’d decreed a final, fated action, shuffling closer and allowing your thigh to touch Copia’s. "Tell me.”
“I want,” he says, “to touch you. I want to show you how I desire you. How I ache for you. I want to make you come, with my tongue, and my hands, and my cock, until you are sated, and then many more times after. I want to kiss you-” He pauses. “Actually, I think I should have started with that one. I want to kiss you until I am full of the taste of you. Does that sound… agreeable to you?”
“Fuck.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It's a yes. Please.”
“Good.”
You don’t know who leans in first but that’s alright because he’s kissing you, an initial tenderness giving way to fervent lust when he pushes his tongue into your mouth. He tastes of the wine you’ve abandoned, and his hand is warm on your cheek. You kiss eagerly, ardently, and there are months of desire condensed into the sigh he breathes into your mouth. You want him on top of you. Chasing the pressure of his weight to hold you in place, your hands are in his hair, luring him forwards. He gets the hint, shifting backwards- you protest as he pulls away- and his hands drop to your hips, tugging you lower on the couch. And then he’s on you, pressing your back into the seat cushions - look, you do fit - teeth grazing your lips before his tongue is in your mouth again.
Aching for some friction, you shimmy to free your legs and wrap them tightly around his hips. In response, he grinds down onto you, and at the junction of your bodies you can feel it; he’s incredibly, incredibly hard. The ache in the pit of your stomach is nigh-unbearable and you push upwards but it’s not enough, not while there’s fabric between you and his cock and you need to touch him and you need him to touch you-
“Fuck,” he breathes into your ear. “You are perfect. I need to-” he presses kisses to your neck, working his way down to your collarbone- “ please let me go down on you.”
“Yes. Absolutely yes.”
He draws back, regards you firmly with a hunter’s glint in his eye. “Let me get on my knees.”
Gladly. You release your legs and he clambers off you, pulling you into a seated position. You busy yourself with your fastenings as he settles in front of you, knees to the hardwood floor, eyeing you as you discard your layers until just the thin barrier of your underwear remains. Gently, reverentially, he slides his hands up your thighs and hooks his fingers underneath your waistband, tugging downwards, laying you bare before him.
“Thank you, ” he says, and then his mouth is on you. Within moments it’s almost too much; hot, wet, eager strokes of his tongue, the sort that mean you can’t help but roll your hips forwards, the grip of his hands on your thighs, the sight of him between your legs, ah shit, you might -
And then he stops abruptly, lips moving to your inner thighs, grazing kisses along your skin. The tension in your legs dissipates. You look at him, aghast.
“Copia, please, ” you whine, and he has the audacity to laugh.
“Now, now. You’re making this too easy for me.”
That shouldn’t get you going, but it does. When he puts his mouth on you again it’s slower, languid, teasing. He brings up one hand to work you with confident, practised ease, tearing breathy swears out of you; you knot your fingers in his hair and try not to buck upwards. It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he discovers what makes you squirm, how to touch you, the ministrations that make his name spill from your lips. With his free hand, he reaches out and laces your fingers together. Fuck. Your heart is hammering and you’re not going to last and he can feel it, of course he can, with the way your legs are tensing and you’re rutting against him in rhythm and you’re going to come. His eyes are fixed on yours as you tip over the edge, his mouth full of you as you ride out the waves of your orgasm together.
Spent, you tip your head back to catch your breath for a moment, before pulling him upwards by your still-joined hands. He lowers himself over you, straddling your hips, and presses his forehead to yours.
“Well. You seemed to enjoy that, yes?” There’s a faint smile on his face, a quirk of the lips that suggests he’s feeling relentlessly proud of himself. You’re almost tempted to tell him you’ve had better, but considering you were both present when he made you fold in about a minute and a half it might be a bit of a hard sell. Honesty, then.
“That was, yeah. Perfect.”
It would be ignorant of you, in this position, not to be acutely aware of the fact that his cock was still straining against his trousers. Frankly, it was hard to miss.
“I want to make you come,” you say, fingers reaching up to his belt buckle. “It’s only fair. And you might take my eye out with that if I don’t.”
Copia laughs. “Well. In the interest of safety…” Deftly, he helps you unbuckle his belt and shift his trousers down to free his cock. Your fingers tighten around him and his breath catches in a way that threatens to awaken some sort of god complex in you.
“How do you like it?” you say breathlessly. He closes his fingers over yours, securing your grip on his cock.
“You can be a little rough with me.”
Anything. Anything he wants. Palming the head of his dick, you note he’s already slick with precum. You take your time working it down his length, and he’s watching your every move with palpable anticipation. When you begin pumping his cock, the sound that escapes him is more than worth the months you’ve been waiting for this. Oh, he’s vocal. Your range of movement isn’t the best- still constrained by the trousers around his thighs, but it’s enough. Adjusting your grip, your free hand settles on the back of his neck and he pushes forward into a desperate kiss. You can taste yourself on his tongue, and the air is thick with the wet, lascivious sound of you working his cock interspersed with his loud, needy moans.
“Faster,” he grunts, and you comply. There’s a twinge of cramp in your wrist that’s attempting to become a problem but it doesn’t matter, fuck, it doesn’t matter because Copia’s saying your name and you want to make him come so hard he forgets his own. His kisses are messier, now, he’s gasping into your mouth and rocking his hips into you and oh, here it comes. His breath hitches and he spills into your hand, cock twitching as you stroke him through his release.
Copia pulls back and examines the mess he’s made of you. To your credit, you caught most of it, but seeing as one’s hand is an imperfect cum receptacle a good amount is seeping through your fingers and onto your stomach.
“Oop,” he says.
You swipe a little bit onto his cheek and he has the decency not to look affronted.
“Was that alright?” you venture.
Copia takes your face in his hands. “You are a dream. I could die a happy man tonight. Though I hope I don’t, as I fear you may become suspect number one if there is any…DNA tracing.” He laughs and presses a kiss to your nose.
“I’d better get rid of the evidence then,” you say. “Help me up.”
“Of course.”
Copia climbs off you, helps you gather your clothes, and gives you an encouraging pat on the arse as you head off to the bathroom to clean yourself up. When you return, he’s on the far side of the room, straightening his bedsheets somewhat frantically.
“So I was thinking, eh, it would be nice if you stayed the night? If you want to.”
He’s flushed, projecting an energy more nervous than when he was gearing up to kiss you, fidgeting slightly. You smile and extend your hand; he pulls you towards the bed and before you know it you’re underneath him once again and his breath is hot in your ear.
“It occurs to me,” he says between kisses, “that we have not watched the movie.”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll be honest, it looked shit.”
He laughs. “Maybe next time, ah?” he murmurs, and he’s slipping his fingers under your waistband. “We are busy tonight.”
#the band ghost#ghost fanfiction#cardinal copia#papa emeritus iv#papa emeritus iii#copia x reader#terzo#ghost bc#copia#sorry for all the tags i'm just proud of this one
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We are so deeply thankful to Irish EMP Clare Daly for these words of support. Including her last words in Catalan taking a stand against Catalanophobia, even when her microphone was cut off.
Context about the debate: recently, the only way for the centre-left parties to form a government in Spain was with support from Catalan parties (otherwise, we would have to go to 3rd elections and the coalition of right wing party and the openly fascist party would win). One of the things that has been negotiated is amnesty for the victims of Spain's ideological repression against Catalan independentists. Spanish nationalists, and particularly the neonazis, have taken the streets to protest against this, while the conservative parties have taken this possible amnesty to the European Parliament to try to gather support from other EU countries against any possible amnesty for the victims of ideological persecution.
Just so you get an idea of the scale of Spain's repression in Catalonia: only between 2017 and 2022, more than 4,400 Catalan people have suffered repression from Spain for their involvement in the Catalan independence movement. The cases that EMP Clare Dally mentions in the video (state surveillance using the Israeli spy software Pegasus to spy on political dissidents including journalists and politicians, repeated instances of police violence, and of undercover policemen who become romantically and sexually involved with the activists they're spying, singers being jailed and exiled for the lyrics of their songs) are some of the ways that Spain surveillances and persecutes Catalans.
This possible amnesty would not apply to all those 4,400, nor give back the years that sons spent without their jailed fathers and mothers, the elderly parents who died while an activist was on exile without being allowed to come back to say goodbye, the psychological consequences of being subjected to solitary confinement and public scrutiny, of Spanish media publishing your personal information (including home address, job address, face photos, full name and surname) for people to go attack your workplace and make you feel unsafe, or the money spent on trying to defend yourself in front of a judge who you know will likely punish you for defending your people's right to self-determination. But even then, they can't stand to think that amnesty is an option to make this political discussion happen in the political ground, and not the judicial one.
Thank you with all our heart to Clare Dally and all the Irish people who support us and show us their solidarity. Go raibh maith agat. Two peoples, same fight.
#actualitat#catalunya#catalonia#ireland#european union#human rights#catalan#self determination#europe#national minorities#minorities#éire
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Today is an important and dark date for any ukrainian. 10 years this day first russian armed forces units crossed the ukrainian border at the Kerch Bridge and the annexation of Crimea started.
In 4 days there would be another anniversary - 2 years since full-scale war with russia.
I haven't posted a lot about war and in general here. Tumblr just doesn't feels right, I rarely go here to watch couple of aesthetic posts, but it does not make any sense now. And yet 10 years of war passed today. And I still see so much uneducated takes on this conflict. People around the world, left-leaning and radical left around the globe still think of this as a local proxy war of "american imperialism" and "russian anti-imperialism". You are right about america agenda, you may say the have geopolitical interests in this conflict and not just pure intentions or altruism. Thats not debatable. I would debate that so mane people don't even realise the level of atrocities committed by russians. Many still believe that images of Bucha are staged. Many still believe ukrainian forces destroyed Donbas in the last ten years. What a farce to read those takes for us, people of ukraine, for me personally, as I spent my first three days of russian invasion in the city of Kyiv, in my home (Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel are the suburbs of Kyiv).
This year ukrainian filmmakers compiled two important documentary films about those atrcities, committed by russians. One of them just earned two prizes on Berlin International Film Festival. And will run for Best Documentary nomination at this years Oscars.
Oscars mean nothing of course, its not a merit of truth. The merrit of truth are those films themselves. The documentary material they present. Award run is just an opportunity for more people outside of Ukraine to see those films. And I beg you to see it.
I will tell about them in the next post. Its damn time for world to see this, for those blinded by russian propaganda especially.
Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka. From the exhumation of mass graves in Kharkiv region. Dozens of civilian ukrainians killed by russian forces in 2022.
#war in ukraine#russian imperialism#russian propaganda#russian invasion#russia is a terrorist state#20 days in mariupol#intercepted#february 2024#oscars 2024#berlinale#war crimes#russian war crimes
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scale of 1 to 10 how buff is astrid in your off the coast au???
(for science purposes, of course)
dragonsoffthecoast!astrid infodump pretty please?? relationships with work, he gang, all of that tasty stuff :]
I CAN ABSOLUTELY INFODUMP ABT ASTRID!! (she's at least an 8 on the buffness scale)
i want astrid to have this body type (photo is of monica granda, who is a powerlifter!!!)
BUT to the main stuff abt ms astrid hofferson :)
general info
astrid picks her name to be astrid legally when she's around 12 :) she used that name as her "viking name" back when she & the gang were little kids playing vikings vs dragons. and since it's?? a rlly cool name. when she changed it from her dead name her parents let her pick & it was all she could think of. it means so much to her.
astrid in school, all school from elementary to college/uni, is a try hard. she is going to be valedictorian if it'll be the last thing she does. if she's not at least top 3 her eye is twitching. she is also very active in sports!! track & field is her JAM!!! esp once she's at uni she does lots of field stuff!! (discus, hammer, etc!!) and powerlifting!!
when she initially came out as trans it was a little rough with her parents (they were a bit distant at first) but they got over themselves & were super supportive as she transitioned :) that's their daughter!!!
she always is wearing her headband, it's yellow & blue to match stormfly's crown. tuff & snot made it for her.
relationships
stormfly is her girl, her best (dragon) friend!! <3 stormfly brings out astrid's playful side and is an excellent confidant for her. astrid is super protective of stormfly. stormfly is in the sanctuary due to having some part of her crown (the spines that stick out of her head) being cracked (they are very important for nadders!!!) and as she healed, astrid was her human. they also both tend to be the ones reigning their friends in (altho stormfly can get carried away when she plays sometimes!!)
hiccup (hirschel) is her best (human) friend. they grew apart when they were in middle school (as did the rest of the gang from hiccup) but in high school she was the first person he revealed toothless to & she (after being convinced to NOT tell any of their parents) did not take hiccup's trust in her lightly. it means a LOT to her. their dynamic is very much like how their friendship is in the shows esp. astrid can get in over her head with how strict she can be abt how to do literally anything & her frustration of others not doing what she would do & hiccup will just dryly vibe check her. she also bluntly (but gently) vibe checks him back (think "so why didn't you?" scene from httyd 1). she's his second in command at work and is in charge when he's not there. hiccstrid is a thing for this au and they do have feelings for each other when they're kids :)
fishlegs (justin) and astrid are super close!! when they're together they're basically the level-headed ones of the group. they bring out the responsible sides of each other lol!! they're each other's confidant and astrid can always rely on fishlegs to be honest (but kind) when she needs advice. they of course have their fun but they're who they go to when they need a moment of calm. astrid is also fishlegs' go to for tasting anything he creates because while she's not the best cook or anything herself, she can give her honest opinion. also they do yoga together!!! fishlegs helps astrid relax (which he understands the struggle of given the fact his resting heart rate is always registered as a panic attack /j). they just rlly appreciate each other.
snotlout (gary) and astrid's relationship should be obvious since that's the one i've posted abt the most but they've been at each other's throats since birth. as kids they were always arguing and it's no different when they're older lol. and obviously they eventually date for a brief period due to astrid developing feelings for him. they are genuine, from both parties, but it's not sustainable for them to stya together. outside of that part, they're still super close and while they will give each other shit the whole way through, they know each other better than anyone else, much to astrid's chagrin.
astrid's relationship with ruffnut (eugene) compared to others in the gang is more strained. astrid falls into a bad habit of treating ruff & tuff like a singular entity a lot of the time (which, in her mind is because one is not without the other and are always causing mayhem together) and this frustrates ruffnut, but ruffnut isn't as vocal as her brother until she feels like she needs to be. however, she does give astrid where credit is due. if only astrid could give her the same credit in return (don't worry, astrid will learn and they do grow closer when they're older, esp once they're in uni)
astrid's relationship with tuffnut (laverne) is similar to how she is with ruff in terms of her tending to act like tuff & ruff are a single entity and not two separate ppl with lots of overlapping interests and behaviors due to being twin siblings (ha. felt). tuff, out of the twin duo, is way more talkative than ruff and he is honestly, despite his snark, very sweet. he's more himself than anyone else in the gang and is the most comfortable in his own skin and astrid is sometimes jealous of him for it. he also is the one in the gang who makes her laugh the most with his silliness, but with how quickly he relays jokes, ofc she laughs more often :)
at work
at the hidden world, astrid is very no-nonsense and is particular abt her sections of the sanctuary, which are the sharp and tracker classes! she ends up with two classes due to the switch of nadders from sharp class to tracker class and she does the primary research for the new tracker class set of dragons!! she also does a lot fo the field work! she loves going out into the woods and helping keep track of dragons and then later help with new species :) she helps tag and track!!! her least favorite thing is sitting at the front desk and having to talk with visitors. she thinks she does alright at the job but hiccup says she "can be scary." but also when she's up front it's snotlout & the twin's favorite time to bother her to get her reactions lol. she's also in charge of making the schedules for everyone by her own decision bc she hates the way everyone else does the schedules.
always has stormfly on her shoulders <3
however once she's at uni her time at the sanctuary lessens, altho she does go back full time during summers! she does work a uni job while there, tho (just either at a coffee shop or smth). after she graduates she goes back to the sanctuary but tosses around the ideas of doing other things (despite what hiccup wants but. that's for them to discuss bc she shouldn't have to do what he wants) she even considers enlisting in the coast guard at some point but decides against it. the gang eventually travel across the country to help with more dragons as well as talk in interviews about dragon conservation & stuff & she becomes one of the main spokepeople :)
#httyd#dragons off the coast au#astrid hofferson#httyd modern au#lil-dragon-draws#loz tag#rose answers#🌹 art#httyd fanart#i hope this is ok!!!#long post#httyd headcanons
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